Naruto The Manga The Game
by Katsuargi
Summary: Another Naruto finds his life a video game fic. The existing ones inspired me to actually make a rough Naruto table top system, so I'm using it to write a fic. I'll be making rolls to actually determine how things go. Good thing it's a video game... Rated T for now.
1. Chapter 1

AN: Yeah. This is another Videogame:Naruto story. My FF reading time has been dominated by Rational fics, Videogame:Naruto fics, and D&D!Character fics (Not sure if that last one is a proper Genre yet, but it should be!). I made a pretty good attempt at working with other Manga that I'm familiar with to do a Videogame:fic, but discovered that Naruto seems to work best for these for whatever reason. It's probably a combination of the open world, pacing, etc. From other Shounin, Onepeice might be a good one if it wasn't for it being set on an Ocean, which limits travel and such.

Anyhow. Something to note is that I may not actually wind up explaining why/how Naruto is in a video game. My enjoyment of the fics comes from the nature of the story itself. Should this story become popular at some point, and there's a massive outcry for it, I -may- attempt to do so.

As you'll figure out soon, this is a Psudo-crossover. It's Naruto crossed with a generic Naruto videogame. The implications of this is while it's Naruto for all intents and purposes, it's not actually happening in his world. This may, or may not, be important later.

I've enjoyed the concept of the Crossover battles from the other Videogame!Naruto fics, so they'll make appearances here. One of hobbies is rational discussion regarding cross battles, as well as fictional calculations surrounding them. appearances by other characters during scenarios should have them in proper line with their actual standing compared to Naruto.

One thing I plan on doing with this is actually playing it as a game behind the scenes. I've come up with some rough table top mechanics which I'll be utilizing. When Naruto comes up against skill checks or battles, I'll be rolling them out. I'll keep track of things and post some of them up in a separate document every now and then for those who enjoy mechanics.

Base Naruto will be a little more intelligent than Canon:Naruto. Consider it a writers weakness of mine, but I don't have the capacity

On with the story.

...

...

"Welcome, Naruto."

With a start, the blonde protagonist shot up in bed, eyes darting around attempting to find who had snuck into his room. An odd feeling settled over him, though, as rather than find himself in his room he found himself sitting up on his bed surrounded by the nothingness of a void. Those spoken words floated, hanging in the air, white against the infinite dark.

The text suddenly swirled, changing it's composition.

"Naruto; the Game."

He blanched, brain racking over possibilities. Genjutsu, maybe? Naruto wasn't exactly the sharpest mind at the academy, but he knew what Genjutsu was. While under ordinary circumstances he probably couldn't actually spot it, Genjutsu typically relied on some degree of being believable. As far as genjutsu went, this was such a break from reality that even he could spot such a thing.

Too bad he didn't actually know Kai.

Below Naruto; the Game floated a single option:

New Game

He gave some brief consideration of his options and found himself short. There were no actual options. He could either take the single option presented or he could twiddle his thumbs and wait for something else to happen.

Naruto wasn't a patient kid.

So he reached out his hand with some hesitation at first, steeling his resolve, and then punching the button. If someone wanted to toss him in a Videogame genjutsu, he'd just kick it's ass and show them how awesome the future Hokage was.

Not that he'd played a video game before. Hm. Maybe this would actually be fun.

There was a flash of white as he punched the New Game option and he suddenly found himself floating outside of his body, looking at it. He stood on a circular platform, eyes cast straight ahead, an overload of text set to the right hand side.

Name: Uzumaki Naruto

Rank: Academy Student

HP: 80

Chakra: 80

Level: 1

EXP: 0/1000

Strength: 8

Reflex: 8

Speed: 8

Precision: 8

Endurance: 8

Control: 8

Power: 8

Intelligence: 8

Charisma: 8

Stat points: 22/22

He looked over the listed numbers, having a basic idea of what most of it meant, most of them being pretty self explanatory. Still, there was a help option floating beneath it and he'd be remise not to do his best to understand the situation he found himself in.

Name: Your name, of course.

Rank: Your rank in the shinobi world. Certain things are locked depending on Rank.

Level: Your mechanical level in the world. Represents your actual strength.

EXP: Your progress towards the next level.

Strength: Your physical capacity to perform feats of strength. Hitting, lifting, etc.

Reflex: The time it takes your body to process incoming stimuli.

Speed: How fast you can physically move.

Precision: Your accuracy with attacks and other actions.

Endurance: How much damage you can take. How much pain you can handle.

Control: How well you control your chakra.

Power: How much raw chakra you have.

Intelligence: How well your mind processes information and knowledge.

Charisma: How well you interact with other people.

A 10 in a category represents an average adult civilian. As a Shinobi in training, and as a protagonist, your stats will start higher than this. Your starting stats are caped at 18 outside of other effects.

Naruto processed this, a smirk coming to his face. So instead of being trapped with whatever he had naturally been born with and whatever he had ineffectively trained over the years, he had the power to actually determine how good he was a different things? This was going to be awesome!

His first move was to put 2 points into each category, not wanting to be weaker than a normal person at anything. He realized this only left him with a few points left to spend, and after some serious contemplation, put 2 more points into intelligence and charisma. He felt like he was going to need to be a little smarter to understand the game he was in, and maybe a higher charisma would help him with Sakura.

He noticed as a result of his stat spread increased his HP and Chakra by 20 each, and noted it down for future reference.

Upon clicking the accept button, he noticed some of his baby fat shrink off himself, and his muscles grew a little more defined. "Awesome!" He exclaimed into the darkness.

A new menu popped up as the changes finished.

Traits:

Jinchūriki - Increase chakra capacity by 5x. Increases control difficulties by 4x. Grants access to the Jinchūriki skill tree.

Flaws:

Hated (Konoha adults): For some reason, you are hated by a vast majority of people in a specific sect. This has role-play applications, and increases the difficulty of Charisma checks greatly with these people.

You may choose one additional trait. Most will be locked until requirements are met.

Naruto gawked. He had no idea what Jinchūriki was, but it was awesome. It gave him 5x the chakra capacity? Who cares it it made control a lot harder, he'd be able use tons of crazy jutsu! And the hatred thing...well, it wasn't exactly new information. A slight pang of pain flickered in his heart, but vanished just as fast. Yeah. Nothing new.

He clicked the trait option to see what his choices were, and found that the majority of them were grayed out, not allowing him to click on them, or even read them.

The options he had access to were:

Ninjutsu Genius - Increases your skill with Ninjutsu, lowering their chakra cost, increasing their effect and making them easier to learn.

Taijutsu Prodigy - Increases your skill with Taijutsu, increasing damage, resistance to pain, and unlocking certain skills.

Genjutsu Wizard - Grants a natural affinity to Genjutsu, making yours harder to break, allowing you to spot them easier, and lowering their chakra cost.

Will of Fire - When your allies or something important to Konoha is in danger, you gain a small increase to all stats.

Heightened Senses - Your senses are heightened to Inzuaka levels. Provides no actual clan advantages.

Rouge - Provides a moderate bonus to spotting and handling traps and minor bonus to stealth.

Lady Killer - Provides increased success from women, bonus damage to women in combat. May cause increased hostility from men.

Prodigy - Provides 5 extra skill points per level. Not retroactive.

Another situation in which his jaw basically dropped. All of these were fantastic. More jutsu? Beating people up easier? Help getting Sakura-chan?! His increased intelligence was showing through already, though, because he understood what retroactive meant, and it's implications. Begrudgingly he clicked the option, figuring he could pick up some of the other awesome stuff later.

Once again the world shifted, and he was greated with the skill selection screen.

"This is where you will pick the skills you have access to as a Ninja. Most skills will be locked until you find them in character, at which point you'll be able to rank them up. Maxing skills will provide new options for that ability. Some may unlock additional talents at certain levels."

Bunshin: 1/25

Henge: 1/25

Kawarmi: 1/25

Acrobatics: 1/50

Taijutsu, general: 1/100

Small projectiles: 1/100

Large projectiles: 1/100

Melee Weapons: 1/100

Tracking: 1/50

Stealth: 1/100

Speech: 1/100

Jinchūriki, basic: 1/50

You have 25 skill points to spend.

Naruto looked over everything, concentration clear on his face. There was cool stuff here, stuff he really wanted. Like, that Jinchūriki was clearly awesome. At the end of the day though, he needed to make sure he could graduate the acadamy, and that meant being good at the basics, and giving himself a little help with Sakura-chan wouldn't hurt anything, right? He placed 5 points into Bushin, Henge, Kawarmi, Small Projectiles and Speech.

His stats updated to reflect his choices, and then the world swirled, everything fading to darkness, as he felt himself pulled back towards his body. A large flash of light blinded his vision and a few moments later he was standing in his room, the color completely grey scale, with an open book floating in front of him, his stats written on it's pages. It closed, "Character" written on it's cover. Then the world around him shifted back into color mode and the book remained floating in the air.

"Game Saved."

"Well. That's weird." He murmured to no one in particular, looking around the small mess he called his apartment. His stomach rumbled it's protest at not having had anything to eat this morning, and he absently walked over to make himself some ramen lost in his thoughts about how things were going.

Really, even if he didn't understand most of it, what it really boiled down to was that it was awesome. He had the full ability to control how he developed, and from what he vaguely knew about video games, Saves let him return if he loaded them or died. So total control over himself, and being able to reload any time he screwed up. This was going to be awesome!

"+1 Instant Ramen Cooking!" Flashed into existence over the stove, causing Naruto to trip over backwards and bash his head on the wall, spilling the boiling food of the gods down his front. A expletive escaped his lips as he jumped up, staring at the words. Startlement was replaced with giddiness as he realized this meant that he could get better at cooking Ramen as well.

He returned to the stove to put this new knowledge to good use when an alarm started going off from his living room, causing him to grumble in frustration. It was time for class. Looked like he'd be attending hungry. Still, he was anxious to put his new skills to good use and quickly made for the door.

As he touched it, the world once more settled to gray scale, "Quests!" popping up as an option. Curious, he clicked it.

1 available quest:

Pass the Exam!

Reward: 1000exp, Genin Rank

Status: Main

Accept?

He stared at the words for a moment, a grin coming to his face. He'd completely forgotten that it was the day of the exam! Hell yeah! He punched the button as hard as he could and the world switched back to color scale. Naruto didn't waste a moment tossing the door open, rushing to the academy as fast as he could.

"Naruto! How could you be late for the exams!" Iruka yelled as Naruto entered.

Naruto's eyes shot up to the clock and he noticed that he was, indeed, about 5 minutes late. Maybe he should put more points in speed so he could get places faster?

"Ah. Sorry sensei." He said, placing his hand on the back of his head sheepishly. "I lost track of time."

Iruka's expression softened slightly while most of his class groaned in annoyance.

"Yes, yes. Just get to your seat."

He nodded, taking his seat in front over the ever emo Sauske, impatiently waiting for his chance to prove his new awesomeness.

Shikamaru groaned from the ground, eyes staring up at the clouds above. "Maa, Naruto. When did you get better at Taijutsu?" The genius himself wasn't great at it, but compared to the likes of Naruto he tended to have a little bit of an edge even without applying himself. As it was, Naruto managed to catch him in the face with his first, albiet very sloppy, punch laying him out on the ground, nose bleeding slightly. "Troublesome." He muttered.

"I've...uh... been practicing on my own!"

Shikamaru groaned and slowly stood back up to continue.

"Yeah!" Naruto exclaimed, as six out of his ten shuriken throws landed on the target, one even catching the target in the face.

His nearby classmates staired with some degree of wonder and even Iruka was left somewhat speechless.

"You really have been applying yourself lately, haven't you Naruto?" Naruto nodded, unable to repress his smirk.

"Alright Naruto. This is the last test, you've done surprisingly good at the rest. Just make a Bushin for us and you'll pass!" Iruka had some small degree of pride in this statement. It shown well for his status as a teacher that even the "dead last" seemed able to graduate.

Naruto ran through a few seals, finishing and calling out "Bunshin no jutus!" There was a poof and a half dead, devoid of color bushin popped into existence beside him.

Naruto gawked, a sweat drop trickling down his face. "Bunshin no jutus!" he tried once more, to the same result.

"Well." Mizuki started. "We could let him pass anyways. He's shown incredible improvement in his other areas. I'm sure he'd be able to fix this problem pretty quick."

Iruka shook his head sadly. "Unfortunately, we can't. Bushin is the most basic skill for demonstrating chakra control. If he can't manage that, we'd almost be guilty of sending him to his death, and possibly his team as well." He shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry Naruto. With your improvement though, I'm positive you'll pass next year!"

Naruto nodded numbly and walked outside, finding a seat to sit in. One by one, his other classmates came out excited about passing the test, their families looking on with pride. He sat alone, occasionally getting dirty looks and overhearing dismissive comments about himself.

Stupid game. Stupid skills. Why was he suddenly better at everything else, but couldn't make a simple clone?

He thought over everything, his mind eventually coming to rest on the Jinchūriki trait. Massive chakra, terrible control. That had to be it. He couldn't control his chakra to do something that required precision like that.

He sighed and started walking back home, wondering if he could change his character now that he had started, or maybe find a way to earn a level before the test. Behind him, he heard a voice, mind placing it as Mizuki's after a few moments.

"Hey Naruto, got a minute?"

"Yatta!" He exclaimed, sitting in the middle of a clearing, eyes filled with excitement. Not only had he managed to pass the secret test, he'd even managed to learn one of the Jutsu from the scroll. Who cared if he couldn't do the stupid normal bunshin? He could do the super awesome kage bunshin! Now all he had to do was wait for Mizuki to show up and he'd graduate.

Suddenly a sharp pain hit the back of his skull and the world went black.

"You've died."

The white words floated in front of him as Naruto pondered, head rubbing the back of his head. What happened? He'd passed the test, hadn't he?

More text floated on the screen:

"Quest: Pass the Exam! - Failed"

"Forbidden technique: Kage Bunshin - Learned. EXP awarded: 1000."

"Level up!"

"Would you like to level?"

The confusion over his death faded to the back of his mind as he shrugged it off. Dying sucked, but he was going to get to go back and do the test again, right? He'd actually pass this time probably!

He clicked yes and found out he'd been given 2 attribute points, both of which he dropped in speed so he wouldn't be late again. A new skill had been unlocked: Kage Bushin 1/50, so he dropped 10 points there, 10 points in Taijutsu and his last 5 points in small weapons. If he did this enough times, he'd be showing even Sauske up!

"Continue?"

"Hell yes!"

AN:

Relevant skill checks:

Passive: Iruka:

Type: Charisma.

Bonus: Charisma x 2 (24)

Difficulty: 30

Roll: 5

Status: Fail

Kunai to the back of the head:

Passive:

Type: Reflex

Bonus: Reflex x2

Difficulty: 30

Roll: 8

Status: Fail

Current stat sheet:

Name: Uzumaki Naruto

Rank: Academy Student

HP: 100

Chakra: 500

Level: 1

EXP: 0/2000

Strength: 10

Reflex: 10

Speed: 12

Precision: 10

Endurance: 10

Control: 10

Power: 10

Intelligence: 12

Charisma: 12

Stat points: 22/22

Traits:

Jinchūriki

Prodigy

Flaws:

Hated (Konoha adults)

Skills:

Bunshin: 6/25

Kage Bunshin: 11/50

Henge: 6/25

Kawarmi: 6/25

Acrobatics: 1/50

Taijutsu, general: 11/100

Small projectiles: 11/100

Large projectiles: 1/100

Melee Weapons: 1/100

Tracking: 1/50

Stealth: 1/100

Speech: 6/100

Jinchūriki, basic: 1/50


	2. Chapter 2

AN: I don't have the patience for editing, unfortunately. I should probably look into getting someone to proofread, at some point.

...

He woke up in his bed, staring at the ceiling. He briefly wondered if it'd just been a weird dream, but a glance in the air of his apartment showed that it was not as the book with his character sheet still floated in the air. His smile came back as he realized the implications, and the first thing he did was create a shadow clone to make him some ramen while he took a shower. He wasn't going to be late this time!

He was less startled this time when the "+1 cooking; Instant Ramen" flashed in front of him, and this time he reached out and touched it, causing the world around him to freeze.

"Cooking; Instant Ramen. 2/25. A miscellaneous ability. Represents how well one can make Instant Ramen."

He wondered at that. He hadn't earned any other skills normally. Maybe skills that weren't super useful could be picked up with actual training?

He finished his shower and nodded to the clone letting it dismiss itself before digging in. He noticed with some mild enjoyment that the Ramen was just a touch better than normal. Maybe just a touch of salt?

He shrugged it off as he headed out, having plenty of time to make it to the academy even without his improved speed.

...

Shikamaru laid on the ground some distance from Naruto, watching the clouds at the sky. "When did you get so much better at Taijutsu?" He asked. He had gone to strike him in the chest, only to have his arm grabbed. A moment later he was tossed several feat away. The students standing around watching were gawking, and both instructors had shocked looks themselves.

"I've been training!" Was the excited response.

"Maa...troublesome." He started to stand back up to resume the test.

...

This time around, all of his shuriken landed on the target, 3 of them even hitting vital locations. More gawking was had, with Iruka standing flabbergasted and Mizuki jotting something down in his notes. Even Sauske himself showed some brief surprise at the dead lasts seemingly miraculous improvement since last week.

...

"Alright Naruto. This is the last test, you've done amazingly good so far. Just make a Bunshin for us and you'll pass!" Iruka had pride in this statement. It shown well for his status as a teacher that even the "dead last" seemed able to graduate with surprising skill.

Naruto smirked, having been ready for this, placing his hands in front of him. Running through seals Iruka identified as certainly not Bunshin, Naruto exlaimed "Kage Bunshin no jutsu!" before a dozen Narutos popped into existance in the room.

Both Iruka and Mizuki stood up in shock before Iruka vanished. A moment later Naruto felt something crack against the back of his skull and he blacked out.

...

His vision came to and he found himself in a dark chamber. Attempts to move found his arms and feet shackled to his chair. Before him stood a not amused, scared man, behind whom were both Iruka and a concerned looking Hokage, as well as a Jounin he didn't recognize with weird head gear.

"Naruto..." The Hokage began gently. "Where did you learn the Kage Bunshin no jutus?"

Naruto froze up, realizing that maybe he had messed up. "Ehh... I found it in a book in the library?"

The Hokage's visage hardened noticeably as he stared Naruto down. "The only location that technique is written is the forbidden scroll, and only five people in the village know the technique. I know none of them would teach it lightly, let alone to an academy student. I'm sorry this has to happen, but we have to know how you learned a village secret."

The scared man moved in, and Naruto began screaming. It didn't take long before he felt his willpower sap, and he started to explain everything about the video game.

"Hokage. I believe someone has gotten to him, driven him mad, and put him up to learning village secrets. There's no telling how long this has been going on."

The Hokage nodded gravely, concern in his eyes. "Don't worry, Naruto. We're going to get you treated. I'm sure you didn't choose to do this, and we'll prove it. It's...just going to take time.

The world faded to black.

...

"Game over; Impossible task; Imprisoned indefinitely."

"New skills unlocked; Interrogation. Resist Interrogation."

"Achievement unlocked; Dangerous Academy Student"

"EXP earned: 500."

Naruto looked on with some degree of relief, knowing he'd at least get to do this over again, chiding himself slightly for a slip up. Of course an academy student shouldn't know a village secret technique. He gave some thought to how he was going to proceed before deciding if he wanted to pass the test, he was going to have to either do it the normal way, or the secret way without getting himself killed.

He was curious though, and clicked the Game over text.

"Game over, Impossible tasks are situations in which you become unable to continue the game with difficulties beyond your capabilities to escape from. Should you have enough skill where you can make an attempt with any degree of success, you will play out the senerio."

He thought about that for a moment. He hadn't gotten a game over when he was initially taken in for interrogation, meaning there was a way for him to deal with that situation. Where as once he failed that, he was moved to a situation impossible for him to do anything about. That was information worth knowing.

Also worth noting was that he also seemed to get exp when he failed, or when he learned new skills, one of the two. Worth looking into in the future. At any rate, he shrugged and hit the continue button.

...

He woke up once more in his bed, but noticed that the world was already greyscalled this time, an open book floating above his head labeled "Hints!"

Only one entry was at present filled in.

"1: You seem to be failing a lot. Perhaps you need more training? Visit the training grounds and earn some levels!"

Naruto smirked, as he found himself doing more and more often these days. Yes, gods yes, so much yes!

He jumped out of bed and proceeded with his morning routine, having a clone cook him breakfast, earn a rank in Ramen making, and take a shower to get ready. He was going to skip the exam today in order to go check out the training grounds.

...

He arrived without any fuss, noticing the options appearing even as he moved towards the entrance to the training areas. The options presented to him were: Technique Training, Sparing, and Cross-battles. Training and Sparing were both free to click on, but examination of cross-battles indicated that it was locked until he graduated. He shrugged his shoulders and clicked on Technique training.

"Welcome to technique training! Here you can do mini-games involving your various techniques in order to gain small bonus ranks to them!"

Well. That was surprisingly useful. He backed out of that option for now and clicked on the sparing option, a list of each of his classmates popping up. Everything below them wasn't readable.

"Here you can challenge various opponents to earn some exp. Note that the EXP rewards are lower than a real fight, and you'll only get EXP the first time you beat each person. All opponents will be bloodlusted."

He nodded. It made sense. If he could just do this as much as he wanted, he'd just train up until he was an Academy student that could kick the old man hokage's ass. What was bloodlusted, though?

He clicked on Shikamaru's name, knowing he could easily win that fight. the world shifted to the training grounds.

...

He was in a clearing surrounded by trees, with Shikamaru standing about 10 meters in front of him.

Knowing he was much better than Shikamaru in taijutsu, he charged forwards to knock out his fellow student only to lock up as he rushed forwards.

"Kagemane no jutus successful." Was all Shikamaru said, as Naruto looked around and noticed that his shadow was locked with the other boys. Shikamaru had this kind of skill? Weird.

As he was processing, Shikamaru turned around and started walking, as he was forced to do the same. After a few seconds he found himself forced into a crawling position, head held over a large rock on the ground.

'What's going...' CRACK!

He pulled his head back, blood dripping down it, pain ripping through it. CRACK!

'This isn't even fai...' CRACK!

This went on for several moments until Naruto's world was swallowed in black.

...

Ok. He mused, looking at the options once more. One: Don't fuck with Shikamaru. Two: That fucking sucked. Three: Bloodlusted seemed to mean that fought as hard as they could. If Shikamaru used this kind of skill, he'd kick everyone's asses!

He clicked on Shikamaru's name once more.

...

As soon as the field came into existence, Naruto ran through his seals and suddenly there were countless numbers of him, all smirking.

"Troublesome." Shikamaru mumbled as the army of clones barrled down on him and beat him into submission.

...

That's pretty much how the rest of the fights went. He would load a fight, spam clones, win. Most of his classmates, outside of Sakura-chan it seemed, had some crazy cool abilities he'd never seen them use. Shino had a bunch of bugs that could drain his and his clones chakra, Kiba could do this cool transformation and spinning attack with his dog, Ino could take control of his body, Sauske could shoot giant fireballs and was, to his irritation, more skilled than him in Taijutsu...

His classmates were awesome!

By the end of the gauntlet, he'd acquired enough EXP to go over level 3 by a fair margin. Unfortunately, the game informed him that his level was maxed until he achieved the rank of Genin meaning he needed to be really careful about how he put these points.

Still, he unlocked a new trait this level, which was awesome!

He put his two attributes into control, hoping that would let him the Bunshin properly, and as much as it pained him, went ahead and put 4 points into Bunshin itself to raise it to an even 10. 14 points went into Taijutsu to bring it to an even 25, and he placed 4 points into speech because why not? The last 3 points went into Small projectiles so he could make his classmates even more shocked.

As much as he wanted to pick up Ninjutsu Genius, he figured it'd be wasted with his chakra reserves so he instead picked up Taijutsu prodigy. It'd be great to spam clones that were awesome at hitting people!

Speaking of Taijutsu, upon confirming his skills he was given the option to specialize in either "Hard" or "Soft" taijutsu. Of course he selected Hard. Who wanted to be awesome at hitting people softly? Maybe it was for trainers or something.

He was pretty satisfied with where he was at the moment, probably the most badass academy student ever!

Still, while he didn't feel like training all his skills, he went ahead and clicked on the training option for the basic academy jutsu wanting to make sure he could pass that portion of the test.

...

He was suddenly standing in middle of the academy testing room, with Iruka sitting at the desk giving him a passive stare.

"Alright Naruto. Show me you can do the three basic skills."

Naruto nodded and ran through some seals, swapping places with a nearby chair. He noticed that it didn't actually take that much effort now that he had more control.

Next he used henge to turn into the chair, no problems at all.

Finally, the moment of truth. With great concentration, and one poof of smoke later, a mostly ok clone was formed. The color was slightly off, so naruto dismissed it and created another one, this one coming into existance perfectly. "Yatta!" He exclaimed in victory.

Iruka nodded. "Good job Naruto. You've cleared the basic training."

"Basic training cleared!"

"+1 to each Bunshin, Henge, Kawarmi."

"Would you like to begin Advanced training?"

Naruto enthusiastically nodded yes before clicking the button, feeling on a roll.

"Alright Naruto. This excersise is going to teach you how to use the three of them together." Iruka instructed, holding a Kunai in his hand. "Your goal is to use the three of them to avoid getting hit for the next 5 minutes. You're allowed to take no action besides those skills, including moving. Begin!"

The kunai suddenly launched, and with a start Naruto swapped with a nearby chair, dodging the next in the same way. After two minutes, all of the chairs vanished, and with some quick thinking, he made began making bunshins, swapping with them as needed. After a minute of this Iruka picked up his pace forcing Naruto to fly through two sets of hand signs each move even faster.

At the 4:30 second mark, Iruka grinned wickedly, drawing two Kunai. Naruto gulped and pulled out his trump card. "Oiroke no Jutsu!" Suddenly Naruto was replaced by a tall, naked, gender swapped version of himself. Iruka dropped both of the kunai in shock, a trickle of blood dripping from his nose. The time elapsed before he recovered.

"Basic training cleared!"

"+2 to each Bunshin, Henge, Kawarmi."

"Handsign speed of acadamy jutsu increased by 50%"

"Achievement; Acadamy technique master!"

"Exp earned: 250"

The world faded back.

...

As Naruto began walking away from the training area, wondering what he was going to do with the rest of his freebie day, words shot up in front of him.

"WARNING; YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO MAKE IT TO THE ACADAMY!"

He could still do the academy tests today?! Sweet!

He ran forwards, using all of his newfound speed to race to the academy. Even so, it would have been too much had the training fields he had gone to not been ones located near the academy.

He made it through the door with something like 30 seconds to spare, some very irritated looks from his fellow students and outright irate from Iruka.

"NARUTO!"

Naruto threw his hands of defensively. "Sorry sorry! I wanted to get in just a little more training before the test..."

Iruka calmed down a touch, and a slight smile came to Mizuki's face. His class just groaned.

"Just...just take your seat." Iruka groaned, gesturing.

...

CRACK! Naruto's fist colided with Shikamaru's face, hard, sending a spurt of blood from his now broken nose and laying the other student out, cold.

There were crickets heard around the world.

...

Half of Naruto's weapons landed in vital areas on the stationary dummy. The rest weren't far off. All of the students were dumbfounded.

Shikamaru, holding an icepack to his nose, looked at Naruto thoughtfully and somewhat incredulously. "...what kind of training did you squeeze in this morning, Naruto?"

Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "The secret kind!"

...

"Alright Naruto. This is the last test, you've done amazingly! Just make a Bunshin for us and you'll pass!" Iruka despite his statement, looked confused. Naruto was poised to graduate in the top three of the exam. He wanted to take pride in, but whatever was going on clearly had nothing to do with him. He'd have to ask the Hokage if he knew anything about Naruto's secret training.

Naruto ran through some handsigns in a slow, concentrated way. A moment later, a perfect replica stood beside him.

Iruka simply nodded. "Alright Naruto, you pa..." He was interupted as Mizuki leaned in and whispered something in his ear. Iruka sat for a moment before nodding. "Mizuki seems to think that it would be best if we had a knowledge test in addition to a skills one. I'm inclined to agree."

Naruto's eyebrows rose. This hadn't happened before. He gazed at Mizuki in thought. Every time he failed, things just went as normal, but when he passed Mizuki called for a test that Naruto was fairly positive he couldn't pass. He was badass now, but there hadn't been any skills on the list like "Knowledge."

Mizuki was also the one that suggested the secret test to him, and he had died after he had "Retrived" the forbidden scroll...

His eyes narrowed as he looked at Mizuki, things clicking into place for him. Thank kami for his extra intelligence points.

...

As expected, he'd failed his test. As expected, Mizuki approached him after and gave him the "secret test." He played along and retrieved the scroll before heading to the clearing. He was tempted, very tempted, to learn more jutsu from it, but put it out of his mind. He could explain away learning a single technique from it, as crazy as that was. Learning more than one would give him more than he thought anyone would buy. There would be opportunities in the future to learn these things, but for now he had enough.

His shadow clone below, holding a fake scroll via henge, popped out of existence as a giant shuriken passed through it's head before sticking in the tree behind it. Or it would have, had Iruka-sensei not suddenly appeared in it's path, earning him a giant shuriken stuck out of his back.

Laughter could be heard as Mizuki walked out of the clearing, clapping his hands. "Ohh, very good job Iruka, protecting -him-. Was it worth it? Why would you do something so stupid?" His usual gentle visage was twisted into a sneer, facade traded for reality.

Naruto poised to leap from the tree and take Mizuki down, but stopped as he continued...

"Why would you protect the Kyuubi? The one that killed your parents?"

Naruto's world froze, and his clone looked up at Iruka confused, upset.

"What?"

Mizuki snarled. "The Demon Fox. The Forth sealed him inside of a baby, inside of -you-. The Hokage forbid anyone to speak of it. You're a demon."

The world slowed to a crawl as Naruto processed.

"No. He's not. He's one of me precious students." Iruka gazed down at him. "And I'm very proud of what he's managed to do."

Something in Naruto's head snapped, and the real him dropped into the clearing as his clone dispersed, it's last sight a look of shock on Iruka's face.

His hands flipped through the seals automatically, all of his chakra shooting through his circits to power it. "KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!" He roared, as suddenly a thousand clones exploded into existence.

Mizuki didn't stand a chance as he was pummeled into near death.

When it was all over, Naruto walked over to Iruka and offered his hand to help him up.

"You learned that from just studying the scroll tonight?" He asked in awe.

"Yeah." Was Naruto's somewhat distant response.

"You really have come a long way." Iruka responded with a smile, tying his headband around Naruto's head, shocking the new Genin.

"I think you've more than earned that. Let's get the scroll back to the hokage and explain, then let's get some Ramen, ok?"

Naruto nodded, a tear streaming down his face. "Thank you, Iruka sensei."

The world froze.

"Quest complete! Path B"

"1000 EXP earned!"

"Precious person earned, Iruka!"

"250 EXP earned!"

"Mizuki defeated!"

"250 EXP earned!"

"Genin Rank earned!"

"Level up!"

"Save Point Reached!"

Absently, Naruto put his two stat points into Control, recent events strongly putting into perspective how badly the difficulty increase hurt him. Not really knowing what to do with the rest of the points with the exam over, he placed them into Kage Bunshin, small projectiles, and Taijutsu.

This brought his Kage Bunshin to 25, which unlocked "Increased resistance to stimulus overload!" he clicked on it, and the text informed him "Can receive the memories of Intelligence x 5 clones a day without sensory overload."

Well. That was useful.

...

Current stat sheet:

Name: Uzumaki Naruto

Rank: Academy Student

HP: 100

Chakra: 500

Level: 4

EXP: 250/4000

Strength: 10

Reflex: 10

Speed: 12

Precision: 10

Endurance: 10

Control: 12

Power: 10

Intelligence: 12

Charisma: 12

Stat points: 22/22

Traits:

Jinchūriki

Prodigy

Taijutsu Prodigy

Flaws:

Hated (Konoha adults)

Skills:

Bunshin: 13/25

Kage Bunshin: 25/50

Henge: 9/25

Kawarmi: 9/25

Acrobatics: 1/50

Taijutsu, Hard: 36/100

Small projectiles: 14/100

Large projectiles: 1/100

Melee Weapons: 1/100

Tracking: 1/50

Stealth: 1/100

Interrogation: 1/100

Resist Interrogation: 1/100

Speech:10/100

Jinchūriki, basic: 1/50


	3. Chapter 3

AN: 0.0. Wasn't expecting something to happen in this chapter. Was only a 5% chance, and I was just doing it to show how things were working in the background. Ah well, I said I'm going with the dice, so that's what's happening.

...

Today was the day he got his team, and he was super excited. Like, the Kage's monument was covered in graffit excited. Surprisingly enough, this earned him both a point in "Pranking" and "Painting; Graffiti." Oh was this game was the most awesome thing that ever happened to him.

He entered the classroom thinking over all of the possibilities, and took a seat without thinking about it as a result. He only came out of it when he realized that most of the eyes in the classroom were on him. Apparently he'd turned a few heads with his performance.

Even Sauske looked over at him and gave him a slight nod of acknowledgement.

Well, that was weird.

Sakura walked by him and paused, seeming like she was going to say something, but then seemed to think better of it and moved on to take a seat somewhere else.

Also fairly weird.

Still, not one to pass up a chance to put his skills to good use, Naruto stood and walked towards Sakura, bending down slightly.

"Wanna grab Ramen to celebrate graduating?"

...

The world went grayscale, and numbered popped up.

Randomly asked Sakura out with Sauske nearby!

Difficulty: 54

Exceptional Success (+10): Ramen Date

Bonus: Charisma x2(24) + Speech (10)

Roll: 20

Total: 54

Success!

What.

The world went back to normal.

...

Sakura glanced at Sauske, and then down at her desk in what seemed like deep consideration, a very small smile coming to her face.

"Well, you were pretty impressive yesterday. Sure...let's get some food later. Not Ramen, though."

All conversation in the room stopped, and the look Sauske gave him was one of...appreciation? It was gone in an instant though.

Naruto stood dumbfounded, not having expected that to work, finally managing to stutter out "Uh...yeah, sure. Sushi, then?"

Sakura nodded an agreement and Naruto numbly walked back to his desk, the rest of the world fading away. Iruka began calling out teams, but it was all lost on him.

Sakura had agreed to go out with him.

Sakura had agreed to go out with him.

Holy crap.

Reality kicked back in a short while later, and he found that he was now alone in the classroom with Sakura and Sauske.

"Earth to the dobe." Sauske said, looking over at him. "Were you even paying attention?"

Naruto's mind flicked through what he knew, and he realized this must be his team. He nodded. "Yeah, I guess we're team mates."

Sauske didn't seem particularly put off by this, and grunted his agreement.

"Yeah. Now if our Sensei would just hurry up and get here..." Sakura interjected, glancing between Naruto and Sauske in consideration.

"Hn." Once more, a wonderful contribution from duck butt.

Naruto just leaned back and zoned, thinking of what he was going to do for the date. He had no idea what to do, and never expected to actually succeed. This was going to call for research.

Excusing himself, he walked out of the room and down to the bathroom before making twenty clones of themselves. Expectations ready, they snapped to attention.

"Uzumaki Squad! Your mission is to go gather intel on how to plan a perfect date, and then make that date happen! Do whatever is required. Should you discover valuable information, dispel yourself so the rest of your squad can put it to good use!"

"Sir yes sir!" Each of them chimed, before snapping off a slopping salute and dog piling out the window.

He returned to the room to find Sakura and Sauske still looking incredibly bored.

"Hang man, anyone?"

"Hn."

...

Recruit 17: "Girls love flowers. Observed. Reporting back."

*poof*

...

Recruit 9: "One should dress properly for a date. We have no clothes or money. Clones 1-5, see if we're allowed to take any missions on our own. Reporting back."

*poof*

...

Recruit 6: "Already at the mission hall. Single Genin may take E ranked missions. Reporting back."

*poof*

...

Recruit 7: "Price of clothing acquired. Reservation made and menu observed. Flower prices acquired. Clones 11-15, assist in earning money. Clone 20, report to Hanna's tailoring for measurements. Henge your face. Reporting back."

*poof*

...

Recruit 20: "Measurements taken, clothing will be ready in a few hours. Reporting back."

*Poof*

...

Naruto found himself both highly amused by the information that he was getting, as well as highly excited. He'd never even thought to use the kage bunshin this way, but the sudden press for time to arrange the perfect date had made him think quickly. He was going to have to keep this in mind for real missions. He wondered if he would have figured this out had things went differently?

He was drawn from his thoughts as the door opened and a jounin strutted in. Tall, silver hair, normal shinobi attire, headband over one eye. These things were noted and filled away for later use.

"My first impression of you all..." he began, looking at each of them in turn. "Well, I don't have a first impression. Follow me up to the roof."

...

"Alright, introduction time." He began, once they were settled in. "Let's try... Name, likes, dislikes, and dreams. I'll start. My name is Hatake Kakashi. I have lots of likes and dislikes, and I don't feel like telling you all my dreams. Next."

Naruto jumped up. "Uzumaki Naruto. My likes are instant ramen, Resturant Ramen, and Sakura! My dislikes are the time it takes to cook instant ramen, and..." he thought about it for a minute. "People that hate other people because of things they couldn't control." he finished. "My dream is to surpass all the previous Hokage and make everyone accept me!"

Kakashi looked at him with some deep thought before turning to look at Sakura. She stood slowly.

"My name is Haruno Sakura. My likes are..." She glanced over at Sauske and then Naruto. "I don't really know, anymore. My dislikes are...um..." She sweat dropped. "Nothing in particular, I guess. My hobbies are...I guess I don't really have any."

Kakashi looked slightly put off, but nodded anyways, turning his head and inclining it towards Sauske.

"Uchiha Sauske. I don't have many likes, though I do have some recently developed respect..." he glanced at Naruto. "I have many dislikes, any my...ambition is to restore my clan and kill a certain man."

Recognition in Kakashi's eyes, then it was gone.

"Maa...enough of that for now. Tomorrow we'll begin our duties, starting with a test."

Naruto groaned. "Another test already?"

"Well. It's the final Genin test. If you pass this, you'll be real genin and on a team. I'll warn you, of the 27 graduates, only 9 will pass."

Naruto blanched, but then smirked. Who cared? If he failed, he'd just reload and try again!

Another clone popped, having successfully completed a scribing mission to earn a little of the money he needed for a date.

The date...

He had almost no chance of making that check again without leveling up.

If he had to reset, he wouldn't get the date with Sakura.

His blanch returned.

"Oh, and I'd advise you not to eat in the morning."

...

By the time the rest of his clones had popped, he had earned a +5 to dating. He felt like he was going to need it.

Naruto showed up at Sakura's house that night in his new suit. The door in front of him opened, and his breath caught in his throat as Sakura stood there in a black dress, looking him over with a pleased eye herself.

He offered her his arm, information gathered by one of his clones on a book from dating. She look suprised, but took it and he began leading her down the street.

"Oh. Naruto. We should get Ramen." He looked at her slightly stunned, though excited at the prospect. "Pasta is a complex carbohydrate. It takes a while to digest, meaning even if we don't eat tomorrow we'll have a source of energy for our bodies to easily use. Of course we'd be better off with solider pills tomorrow, but I don't think we'd be able to get any..."

He gaped slightly, but then pulled himself together. Sakura was top of their class for academics, so it made sense she'd know lots of stuff like that. He broke their arm lock for a moment, calling to shadow clones to life. Knowing their purpose, they scampered off before he retook her arm.

"That...that was a B-rank Kenjutsu..." She muttered in awe.

Naruto gave her a huge grin. "Yeah. I learned it and then beat up Mizuki with it when he tried to betray the village."

She nodded numbly and followed his lead to the Ramen stand.

...

She laid on her bed staring at the ceiling, thoughts flickering through her head. Naruto was amazing. Like, really, really amazing. The date had been almost perfect, and he was apparently really strong. She looked into it, and he had actually beaten down an chuunin who attempted to go missing nin after stealing the scroll of forbidden jutsu. He knew a B rank jutsu, and he'd graduated 3rd place in the final exam once Mizuki's test was tossed out.

How had she overlooked him? Both Sauske and Naruto were amazing. A slight flicker of walking in their shadows flickered through her, but she dismissed it. She was going to catch up to them.

Hell yeah!

...

"Secret quest; Go on a date with Sakura!"

"Passed!"

"Achievement unlocked: How'd that happen?!"

"Date Score: 90/100"

"Rank: A-"

"EXP gained: 4000"

"Sakura's motivation: Greatly increased!"

"Level up!"

Naruto looked at the words with some shock. Holy crap. He'd actually done it. He'd actually taken Sakura on an amazing date. And somehow, that'd made her more motivated as a ninja.

Hell yeah.

His clones had managed to successfully collect a mission supply of soldier pills from a chuunin sleeping on the wall after several hours. He looked into it and found they were also useful for restoring energy due to lack of sleep, but weren't given to Genin because of ease of abuse and the damage they could cause if one did so.

Naruto figured a single day wouldn't hurt, as that's what they were made for, and set out for the training grounds. He had to push himself to the limit.

He'd earned a level though, and that was the first priority. He looked over his options very, very carefully before finally placing two points into intelligence. He needed to be able to figure out anything that happened tomorrow, and make sure he didn't overlook any detail.

As for skills, he dropped all 25 points into Kage Bunshin, hoping that whatever special ability it unlocked would give him the edge he needed. Even if it didn't, it was by far his most powerful ability and his best chance to succeed.

Upon confirming, he was given the following options:

Kage Bunshin shuffle: When using Kage Bunshin, you automatically Kawarmi with one of the clones.

Kage Bunshin Suicide: Every 10th clone you produce explodes when killed.

After a great deal of thought, he ultimately chose Suicide. Shuffle was a really powerful ability, and he was sure someone smarter than him could put it to amazing use. But he **knew** Suicide would work for him.

Finally, there were Talents. The Ninjutsu and Genjutsu options were gone, and he didn't know if this was because they were mutually exclusive to the Taijutsu option or if they had to be taken before level 5. It was an important distinction, but not one he could learn the answer to.

There were now a few new options available to him, though. And they were all really, really good.

Jinchūriki Rebirth - If an attack would kill you, it instead activates your Jinchūriki

powers. Only functions once per day. May still be killed if the attack is strong enough to puncture your increased resistance anyways.

Underneath the Underneath - Gain a +5 intelligence bonus to understand unsaid things in what people say.

Master of Anatomy - If it lives, you know it's internals, and can strike at them for increased damage. Adds in character knowledge of anatomy, adds precision to damage with applicable attacks, increases Ijutsu effectiveness by 25%.

Deny Fate - Level / 2 rounded down times per day, you can declare Deny Fate. Time stops and you may move for five seconds, but may not interact with the world around you.

He debated. He debated long, and he debated hard, and at the end, he was unsure of his choice, but he did his best. Jinchūriki Rebirth sounded like the most powerful, but he doubted Kakashi would attempt to kill him, and he needed something that would help him with the test coming up. It was short sighted, but he would not risk losing this day. He could have taken Charisma, speech and Lady Killer to insure that he could get the date if he failed, but Uzumaki Naruto didn't deal in what ifs for failure. He'd win, damnit!

The real debate came down to Underneath the underneath, and Deny Fate. Knowledge vs. movement that no one could react to.

In the end, Deny Fate is what he chose. There was no grantee Kakashi would say something that he needed to understand, and Deny Fate would be useful regardless of the situation. He hoped that he chose correctly.

The world came back to reality as he confirmed his selection, and then shortly after faded back out as he brought up the training options when he reached the field.

"Training"

"Sparing"

"Crossbattles - now unlocked."

He raised his eyebrows at crossbattles, and clicked on it.

"Crossbattles are ways of going up against people from other dimensions. You will recieve both EXP and a special perk for completing a cross battle. As they are from other dimensions, they're abilities work differently from your own, so they pose serious threat. Good luck"

He glanced at the list of battle options, most of them at a level higher than his. Eventually, he clicked on the first one on the list, which was sitting at his level.

"The Monkey King"

...

There was something to be said about Shadow Clones. They were a "Perfect" replica of him, for the most part, but they were fairly stupid. They seemed to come into being with what knowledge and skill he had in relation to their intended task, but not much beyond that.

He was going to have to practice long and hard to get his micromanaging skills and tactics beat into something reasonable, because the opponent we was up against was making his usual tactic of dog piling clones on his target a fairly useless one. They'd gotten a few good hits in at first, until he opponent had given a thoughtful look, smiled, and then drew the staff on his back.

The staff, as it turned out, could extend to insane lengths. Once that equalizer was in play, his opponent had been able to tear through his clone army with ease. On the flip side, some of them were close enough that when they exploded it caught him in the shockwave.

Naruto crossed his arms in front of his face and braced against the staff shot out of the dust, sweeping through the clones close to him before crashing into his guard with a crack that both almost broke his arms and sending him flying several meters away before he rolled to a stop.

He stood up and dusted himself off, forming more clones as the dust in front of him settled. The young boy, younger than Naruto himself stood there, dressed in a blue Gi, a staff across his shoulders, and a furry belt...or, was that a tail? Naruto couldn't really tell.

The boys gi had been mostly blown off, and his body was covered in burns and wounds. But there was a smile on his face, contrary to that damage. "I haven't had a fight this good since my grandpa died!"

"Ahh." Naruto stammered, putting a hand on the back of his head sheepishly. "Yeah, this is pretty awesome. I'm Uzumaki Naruto!" He declared suddenly, with a friendly wave.

His opponent waved back. "Son Goku." And then the battle resumed, with that staff growing to be taller than most buildings Naruto had seen, slashing through his army of clones. For his part, he leapt high into the air as some of them detonated below, tossing a wave of kunai at Goku who responded by leaping back several feat and retracting his staff as Naruto closed in from above.

He was going to have to see if there was a way he could control which clones exploded. Having his entire army wiped out because a few random clones went boom was as much of a hindrance as the ability was awesome.

Goku side stepped his blow from above and lashed out with a kick as he was recovering. Quickly twisting around he managed to block it with his forearm causing him to wince with pain as he slid back a few feet. Kid was strong, really strong.

He took a step in and jabbed with a punch of his own only for it to be deflected to the inside by Goku's left hand, opening him up his ribs for a vicious punishment. He grunted as the attack impacted and took a few steps back. Definitely some broken ribs. The kid was both freakishly strong and really good at Taijutsu. Mass clones were out, and trading blows wasn't going to end well.

As Goku stepped in again, Naruto tossed a kunai up with a slight flick, started a donkey kick behind him, and formed a quick handseal. He hoped this idea worked.

The end result was Goku punched a kunai, slicing into his fist, and Naruto stomped him hard in the back of the head causing him to stumble forwards a few feet this time. Not wanting to lose momentum, he formed another hand seal instinctively and called "Deny Fate!" as a result, the world froze around him.

He landed and twisted around, drawing back, and as time unfroze unleashed a massive haymaker into the back of Goku's head sending him crashing to the ground unconscious.

The world faded to black.

...

Congratulations! You've defeated the monkey king (Lvl 1: Pre Training)!

You've earned the achievement trait: Martial Artist(Beginner)

+5% Taijutsu damage. -5% Taijutsu damage taken!

EXP Earned: 5000

...

"Oi, Naruto." He turned as he heard a somewhat familiar voice, seeing a certain silver haired Jounin standing behind him. "I know that you've been doing some solo training, but tonight really isn't the night. You've got training in the morning, and I expect you to be at your best."

Naruto was somewhat dumbfounded. It seemed like when he was checking menus, time seemed to stand still. Which meant that either it didn't, and he just stood around looking stupid, or Kakashi had arrived a few seconds after he showed up. Either way...

"Eh, I'll be fine Kakashi-sensei." he said, smiling stupidly. "I've got tons of stamina."

Kakashi, for his side of things, just continued to stair the blond down. "Be that as it may, you'll be letting your team mates down if you're not at your best. Pack up and head home, that's an order."

And with that, the Jounin was gone, leaving Naruto to grumble in the clearing before starting to head back. An extra level wasn't anything to sneeze at, he'd only have to hope it'd be enough.

When he got home he brought the menu back up and checked the character sheet. Two more points into intelligence, the last two he felt he was likely to put there for awhile. The skill points got spread between speech, just in case, and then tracking and stealth. Again, just in case. He doubted either Sakura or Sauske would have much skill in either, and it was best to have their bases covered for the test in the morning.

After that he laid down and passed out. It didn't seem like the training left him with any actual physical damage, but his mind was exhausted.

...

AN: Unfortunately for pacing, this hasn't place Naruto's level beyond about where I thought it'd be by this point. The extra training he squeezed in the night before would have happened sometime after Kakashi's training, being the difference. So he was a level higher during the test, but everything will be balanced back out as long as the dice rolls don't take the story in a batshit direction again.

Current stat sheet:

Name: Uzumaki Naruto

Rank: Genin

HP: 100

Chakra: 500

Level: 6

EXP: 250/6000

Strength: 10

Reflex: 10

Speed: 12

Precision: 10

Endurance: 10

Control: 12

Power: 10

Intelligence: 16

Charisma: 12

Traits:

Jinchūriki

Prodigy

Taijutsu Prodigy

Flaws:

Hated (Konoha adults)

Skills:

Bunshin: 13/25

Kage Bunshin Suicide: 50/50

Henge: 9/25

Kawarmi: 9/25

Acrobatics: 1/50

Taijutsu, Hard: 36/100

Small projectiles: 14/100

Large projectiles: 1/100

Melee Weapons: 1/100

Tracking: 10/100

Stealth: 10/100

Interrogation: 1/100

Resist Interrogation: 1/100

Speech:17/100

Jinchūriki, basic: 1/50

Knowledges:

General: 5/100

World History: 1/100

Konoha history: 10/100

Chakra Theory: 2/100

Tactics: 1/100


	4. Chapter 4

Today was the day, the day that he had prepared for, given everything he had to get ready for. Well. Everything he had to give in one night, at any rate. That still counted for something, right? That said, he briefly gave some consideration to running off and squeezing just a little more training in before he had to go deal with this test, but brushed the notion away. It really wouldn't help if he showed up somewhat mentally tired for the battle, and he felt this was about as good as things were going to get.

Instead he hopped up and speed through the motions of a shower, as there was no point in losing favor with Sakura at this point, and rushed outside to meet the day.

It didn't take him long to get to the location for the final test, and when he did he noticed Sakura and Sauske were already there. He grumbled under his breath, having explicitly woken up early to set a good impression by being early. Ah well.

He reached into his pocket and tossed something to each of them, Sakura flinching slightly before catching it, and Sauske doing so with a practiced, "I'm too cool for you" off hand.

"Morning Sakura. Sauske." With a nod to both of them.

Sakura looked appreciatively at her hand. "A soldier pill? Do I even want to know what you did to get a hold of them?"

He chuckled in response. "A ninja has his ways. Eat up so we're good to go. I popped mine on the way over."

She managed a thanks as she popped the pill, feeling the weakness of hunger slide away. Not the sensation of hunger itself, but he wasn't equipped to actually fill her up at the moment.

Sauske responded with his usual "Hn." And downed the pill with a slight, appreciative nod.

Ah. Good days.

After that he traded small talk with Sakura as they waited for their ever late Jounin instructor, before Naruto paused with consideration on his face, thinking about the situation. What was the test going to be about? Could he do anything to prepare before hand, now that he was with his team?

He could almost hear dice thumping in the background as he thought, but he dismissed it as a thought popped into his head.

Genin were sorted into squads, and due to their individual lack of skill that was the only way they could be effective. They had already proved individual competence by passing the academy, but to actually be an effective Genin one had to be able to function with their team.

"This has to be a test of team work." He finally said aloud. "We already proved we can independently be Genin, but Genin are only effective on a team..."

Sakura looked slighten taken back by his sudden deduction, but shook her head in agreement. Off to the side he noticed Sauske give a slight nod of agreement.

"Alright, I need to know at least a little of what you guys can do."

Sakura looked thoughtful for a moment. "Well, I have a near mastery of the basic academy techniques, and I did a lot of extra studying in our non-combat classes."

Naruto nodded and glanced at Sauske.

"Academy techniques and..." He thought carefully, before continuing. "One of my clans fire techniques."

Naruto nodded. He could use this, yes. He started laying out a plan, once more ignoring the sound of dice in the background. He'd hear it once more as he attempted to convince them to go along with it.

It was pretty basic, as he didn't know the specifics of the test. Should it prove to be some sort of assignment, Naruto was to take point, playing his usual fool self. Sakura would contribute any knowledge relevant to the situation without hesitation, and support with the basic skills and ranged weapons as necessary. Sauske, if it came down to it, would provide the heavy artillery, and take advantage of any openings Naruto provided. After that, it was just a step further to come up with some basic hand signals to share.

In case the test turned out to be some form of combat, he formed two shadow clones, having them henge into his classmates, seven to hide around the area, and a final one to stand in for him. He'd gotten around to re-reading the skill and now had an understanding of how it actually worked.

After that, all he had to do was wait.

...

You've laid a successful plan!

Plans increase your effectiveness in an encounter so long as all people play their parts, and the encounter itself doesn't stray too far from the plan itself.

This bonus is based on your Tactics roll, and modified by how specific the plan was.

Achievement unlocked: Beginner tactician!

+4 tactics! +2 Speech!

...

Kakashi entered the arena to some fanfare from his students as he waved hello. Their cries went ignored as he went about setting up an alarm clock, after which he produced two bells from his pouch.

"The clock is set for noon. As you can see, I have two bells. Your task is to take these bells from me. As you can see, there only two. Anyone who doesn't manage to get a bell fails, and goes back to the academy. So, at minimum, one of you are going back." His tone was intentional, very explicitly suggesting he doubted any of them would be passing.

"Well. You better come with the intent to kill, if you plan on having a chance."

Naruto reacted quickly, snatching a kunai from his side and drawing behind his head to chuck it at his teacher.

Kakashi sighed as was behind the boy, arm clutched in hand with his other resting on the back of his head, before any of the three could respond.

"I appreciate the enthusiasm, but we haven't started...begin." As the words left his mouth, he felt a surge of chakra from the boy. Ohh? What was thi...

He barely had a fraction of a second to leap into the air as the explosion began, actually causing some minor burns and singing some clothes as he came up through the blast. He twisted around as he heard a should from above, his hands running through some signs in the process. A moment later he was fending off a fireball from the Uchiha who was above him somehow. No, not somehow, all three of them had been clones.

He was left in a disadvantageous position then as suddenly there were eight Narutos pilling on him from the side. He'd heard he'd learned the Shadow clone and defeated Mizuki with it, but to have already learned the clone explosion skill...

He struck around his sides with kicks, dispelling them faster than they could react to as he continued to fuel his jet of water to hold off the fire above. One of the Naruto's threw a large log at him and he just barely managed to arc his back enough to avoid it, feeling it bush against him as it passed by. An odd choice of projectile, but if he hadn't actually been prepared to kill, well, it was understandable as he was still a genin. Wait, that hadn't been wood...

The thought came too late as he felt a tug on his belt and the fireball above ended as abruptly as this entire thing had started. He cut off his own jutsu in response, landing between a three way pincer. It would have been easy to deal with, but there was no longer a point as Sakura stood proudly, clutching the two bells.

Three fresh Genin had managed to get the drop on him, and had done so in under thirty seconds. That was...disconcerting.

"Well...that happened. You three have shown good team work, but...Sakura." He turned to look at what he considered to be the weakest link on the team. "Who are you going to make go back?"

"OH OH!" Naruto cried. "Pick me! I just kicked a jounin's ass! Another year in the academy and I'll take the old mans hat!"

Sasuke shook his head disdainfully. "No, I'll be going for that extra training."

Kakashi sweat dropped, and started to open his mouth to tell them the purpose of the test...

"OH hell no!" Sakura yelled. "I'm going to go back to become a badass!"

... "Oh fuck it." Kakashi grumbled in annoyance. "You all pass."

And with that he shushined from the area. He needed a drink.

...

Naruto smiled as he looked around the team, both members giving him odd looks. "Great job guys!"

"Hn."

"Erm...Naruto...how did you know Kakashi was bluffing?"

Naruto grinned sheepishly. "Well. It was to test how we worked as a team. It wouldn't really make sense for him to send one of us back after that...and, if I was wrong, I really didn't mind going back."

The other two seemed to accept this, not seeming that shocked he'd managed to work it out. He'd apparently earned some degree of respect, by this point.

"So what now?" Sakura finally said.

"Celebratory Ramen?"

"Uh..yeah, sure."

"Hn."

Oh, the beginnings of a beautiful team.

...

The world froze.

Mission Complete!

Kakashi's test!

EXP earned: 3000!

Bonus EXP: 5000!

Achievement earned:

The strongest team!

+5 Tactics!

Advanced Skill unlocked: Leadership!

Level up!

Naruto reached out and touched the leadership feat, curious of it's function.

"Advanced skills are specializations that add their bonus to tests involving them, in addition to the normal skill. This allows you to hit difficulties that might otherwise be impossible."

"Leadership is a sub-skill of speech. Where as speech is your general ability to convince other people of things, Leadership is your ability to lead people in a battle. It's bonus applies when using the speech skill with combat related things."

Well. That was all kinds of awesome.

At the level up, he went ahead and put two points into his speed, bringing it up to a 14, well above the normal average but still pretty poor in comparison to the sheer velocity Kakashi seemed to be able to operate at. He dropped 14 skill points into Taijutsu, bringing it up to an even 50 and unlocking a new option for him:

Boulder Puncher - You may, or may not, practice punching boulders all day. The end result of this is that you do a bonus 100% damage against objects, and physical defenses are 75% less effective against you.

Power Overwhelming - You really, really don't know how to hold back. Your physical damage is increased 50%. On the other hand, every time you land a hit, you take 20% of it as damage yourself.

After much consideration, he finally settled Power Overwhelming. It was risky, but he figured if it transferred to his clones, it'd be more than worth it. If it didn't dispel them, anyways...maybe it wasn't the best decision, thinking back.

The remaining points went into Jinchūriki. If the village was going to hate him for it, he might as well have something to show for it. And finally, traits, of which there were new ones waiting for him.

Juggernaut: You're a brick wall, and you seem to get back up from almost everything. Reduce all physical damage by 5, and your injuries heal twice as fast.

Sensor: Use the force, naru...wrong genre. Unlocks the sensor skill, which allows you to detect nearby chakra signatures, and their strengths, up to a distance of control x5 meters. If someone is attempting to hide, this opposed by their stealth skill, using control as the attribute.

There really wasn't much choice here. He'd eventually be picking up a lot of these old skills, but for now Juggernaut was calling to him.

...

Name: Uzumaki Naruto

Rank: Genin

HP: 100

Chakra: 500

Level: 7

EXP: 2250/7000

Strength: 10

Reflex: 10

Speed: 14

Precision: 10

Endurance: 10

Control: 12

Power: 10

Intelligence: 16

Charisma: 12

Traits:

Jinchūriki

Prodigy

Taijutsu Prodigy

Martial Artist(Beginner)

Deny Fate

Juggernaut

Flaws:

Hated (Konoha adults)

Skills:

Bunshin: 13/25

Kage Bunshin Suicide: 50/50

Henge: 9/25

Kawarmi: 9/25

Acrobatics: 1/50

Taijutsu, Hard: 50/100

!Power Overwhelming

Small projectiles: 14/100

Large projectiles: 1/100

Melee Weapons: 1/100

Tracking: 10/100

Stealth: 10/100

Interrogation: 1/100

Resist Interrogation: 1/100

Speech:19/100

-Leadership: 1/100

Jinchūriki, basic: 12/50

Knowledges:

General: 5/100

World History: 1/100

Konoha history: 10/100

Chakra Theory: 2/100

Tactics: 10/100


	5. Chapter 5

Going to do test a different writting style this chapter. We'll see how it goes.

...

The morning light from the dawn cresting over the village spilled through his window, it's signal waking him from his well earned sleep. He stretched, swinging his legs over the bed to stand, but was interrupted from his motions by a large exclamation point floating before him. He gazed at it for a moment before deciding it was likely related to the game, and with a shrug, reached out and tapped it.

**"Notice: An update has been put into effect. The ability "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu" Combined with the Jinchuriki trait has been found to be unbalanced. A hotfix has been put into place, limiting Kage Bunshin to 1 clone per 2 control. The 25 point bonus for Kage Bunshin has been reworked to allow information sharing between all clones without dispelling. We'll be watching to see how this balance works out."**

He blinked, giving the words a moment to sink in before begrudgingly accepting it and shrugging it off. The game had been giving him enough advantages as it was, and reducing the number of clones that he could make, while a major hindrance, wasn't something he was going to pout over.

He went about his typical morning routine, having a clone cook him some morning breakfast while he went about taking a shower. He gave some thought to things as the hot water poured down on him, putting his newfound intelligence to the test. It seemed as though he would unlock a skill once he attempted to do it, at least once. Thus, it stood to reason, most anything he could think of existed as a skill for him to learn.

He imagined that Kakashi would eventually show him some things, but for now, he decided to use his day off before team missions began to seek out another source of information to give him some direction on learning things.

The clone informed him mentally that breakfast was ready, and a few minutes later saw him sitting down to eat. Staring at his ramen as he chowed down on it, a thought occurred to him that perhaps Ramen wasn't exactly the most healthy thing in the world for him to eat constantly. It was delicious, yes, but he vaguely remembered something about a balanced meal being good for shinobi.

Rather than dismiss the clone, this morning, he sent his minion off into the world to do some research on nutrition. With the video game mechanics working the way he did, he wasn't sure if nutrition was important. Hell, he wasn't even sure if he needed to eat or drink to survive. That didn't mean he shouldn't make an attempt to gain every advantage that he could.

Finishing breakfast, he stood and started heading to the Hokage tower.

...

"Hey Jiji." His voice was somewhat subdued as he sat back in a chair across from the desk, observing the closest thing he had to a family member growing up. There was some concern on the old mans face, and he had some inkling as to why.

"I assume you're here to ask about...that?"

He looked at the old man quizzically for a moment before realization sat in on him and he shrugged in response. "Not particularly. Knowing about it would be useful, I think. But it's not why I came out."

The old man nodded. "Well. The basics are pretty simple. You're a Jinchuriki of the Kyuubi. The means that the demon is sealed inside of you."

Naruto nodded. "Which is why everyone hates me. They see the fox when they look at me." He shrugged. "Makes sense. And given that my classmates never seemed to react particularly bad towards me like the villagers do, I'd imagine that they don't know?"

There was some shock on the old mans face, and Naruto had to restrain himself from chuckling. The old man wouldn't be used to him actually being able to think things through on his own.

"Yes. It's an S Rank secret, punishable by death. Only those that knew at the time were permitted to know."

He gave the old man a knowing look. "I figured as much. At any rate Jiji, that's not why I came out. As you know, I graduated from the academy, and even passed Kakashi's test. So I'm a full flegged Genin now, and I start my missions with my team tomorrow."

The heavier look went away from the old man with the switch of the topic of conversation, being replaced with levity and some degree of pride. "Ah. I'd heard that, yes. And that you did rather well in your tests. Surprisingly well, even..."

Naruto smiled sheepishly. "Yeah. I'd been doing some secret training on my own, and I didn't want anyone to know about it so I held off until the test to show what all I'd learned. That's kind of why I'm here, actually. I was hoping you could give me some pointers on how to be a better ninja. Not long term things, just some things I can work on in my own time."

The Hokage nodded. "That's suprisingly mature of you, Naruto. Your sensei will be responsible for most of your training, of course...but if you think you're up for it I don't see why I can't give you some things to work on your own."

The old man reached into one of his drawers and handed Naruto a scroll. "One of the things that I'd heard from Iruka was that you had some difficulty with chakra control. You know why, now, but this should be a step in the right direction to help you keep it under control. There are many techniques that require a lot of precision when using, so overloading them won't always be an option. This scroll will teach you the basics of a chakra control exercise. You should have an easier time with it once you learn how to do that."

Naruto accepted the scroll. "Thanks, Jiji." He stood and began to leave.

"Naruto, are you serious about doing everything you can to be a better shinobi?"

"Of course. How else am I going to take that hat?"

The old man chuckled, and tossed him a small bag of money. "Then get yourself a different outfit. Orange stands out in the field too much."

Naruto nodded, accepting the money. "I can see the logic in that."

...

That's how Naruto found himself entering into a Shinobi gear store, various outfits, weapons, and miscilanious gear on display. The world froze, text floating in front of him.

**"Tutorial; Items and equipment. All items and equipment have stats that affect your character. Better items mean better bonuses for what they do. If you haven't figured it out yet, you can open your Inventory by saying the word."**

About par for the course, he figured. "Inventory."

Ah. There it was. His jump suit, showing him that it offered nothing in the way of positive stats, no defense, and actually gave him negatives to his stealth checks. He checked over the rest of his gear and saw that it all had minor negatives, signs of the wear and tear that it had suffered. Looks like he was in need of replacements.

He came out of the menu and looked around, seeing clothing of much more reasonable make. His eventual decision was a black body suit base for missions, and a simple pair of white shorts and a black tee for going around the village. He wasn't really sure on style, having never given it any thought, so he stuck with simple, solid colors for now. As far as mission clothing went, he figured black wouldn't stand out near as much as other colors, the only thing that would be better being clothing specifically tailored for whatever environment he was going into.

He took his choices to the counter to purchase, noticing that it was a young woman, perhaps a year or two older than him. Noticing the headband, he shot through his much improved memory, eventually settling on her name.

"Hey Tenten." He said with a smile, laying the items on the counter.

"Hey...Naruto." She said after a few moments thought. "I see you graduated."

"Yep. Near top of my class on the practical exams."

She gawked for a moment before shaking it off, running his purchases through as he sat his kunai and shuriken on the table.

"How much to get a new set?"

"Oh, you are new to this, arn't you? Replacing basic equipment is free if you bring the old gear back for us to fix. The village pays us for doing the repair work."

He nodded. Made sense to keep shinobi equipped with at least the basics. "I assume that anything special costs money, though?"

She nodded. "You got it. Typically you have your standard gear covered by the village, along with one primary weapon. Staves, swords, Fuma shuriken. That sort of stuff. Anything more than that, or anything specialty, will cost you."

"Cool. Mind going ahead and replacing that stuff? And, erm, going and tossing in whatever else basic gear consists of?"

She smiled at him, proceeding to get out his replacements, along with some wire, caltrops, and a few other miscellaneous tools. "Here you go. Any primary weapon you'd like?"

He thought about it. Swords and stuff were cool, but that'd be more skills he'd have to spread himself out into. He was getting pretty good at Taijutsu, and didn't really see the point in branching out.

"Well. I normally just do Taijutsu, so I don't really think I want to pick up a weapon at the moment."

She beamed at him. "Well, there are weapons that work well with taijutsu. Punching daggers, trench knives, brass knuckles, etc. What type of Taijutsu do you do?"

"Hard style."

She nodded, pulling out a pair of brass knuckles and placing it with the rest of his gear. "These should be fine to get you started. Brass is a weaker metal..." She looked him up and down. "But you should be fine for now. If you start damaging these with your punches, come back and we'll get you upgraded to something a little more sturdy. Oh, and take this, on the house, concider it a graduation present." She said, pulling out a jacket and placing it down. It was black, rather than the chuunin flack jacket green, and didn't seem to have the same protection that it offered. Still, it had a bunch of pouches on the outside and inside, giving him places to carry his stuff in battle.

"Thanks Tenten." He started loading up the gear, offering her one last smile before he headed out, turning towards the training grounds. Time to get started on this chakra control exercise.

...

He stood in the middle of his second favorite training ground (the favorite, obviously, being the one that let him fight people from other universes), and opened the scroll. As soon as he did, a 0% appeared at the bottom left corner of his vision, and he began reading.

Apparently the first step in learning to control one's chakra was "tree climbing" which was something of a misnomer. While it would allow him to climb trees, he was fairly sure the logic would apply to any solid structure. As a matter of fact, he'd imagine things harder than trees would actually be fairly simple to climb, especially once he got this skill down.

"Focus your chakra on your feet, and allow it to adhere you to the tree."

Hm. Easy enough, he supposed. He walked towards a tree, and focusing his chakra, began to walk up it. He made it two steps before the bark under his foot exploded, sending him crashing to the ground. Yeah, definitely a precision type excersise.

Uzumaki Naruto was a lot of things, and at this moment, a dirty cheater was one of them. He summoned 5 clones, giving him the maximum he could currently have seeing as one was still researching nutrition, and set them all about working on the excersises, cutting the time it would take him to less than 20%.

He occasionally had to replace the clones, as crashing on the ground was enough force to disrupt them. Even so, the percent meter at the bottom of his vision increased at a reasonable pace, and by eight that night, it capped out at 100%. The world froze as the primary him stood on top of a tree, gazing over the forest.

**"Tree climbing exercise complete! You've gained the trait; Tree Climbing pro.**

**Tree Climbing pro; You may move normally on most solid surfaces. +3 Control.**

**2000 EXP earned."**

Well. That was easy.

...

Name: Uzumaki Naruto

Rank: Genin

HP: 100

Chakra: 500

Level: 7

EXP: 4250/7000

Strength: 10

Reflex: 10

Speed: 14

Precision: 10

Endurance: 10

Control: 15

Power: 10

Intelligence: 16

Charisma: 12

Traits:

Jinchūriki

Prodigy

Taijutsu Prodigy

Martial Artist(Beginner)

Deny Fate

Juggernaut

Flaws:

Hated (Konoha adults)

Skills:

Bunshin: 13/25

Kage Bunshin Suicide: 50/50

Henge: 9/25

Kawarmi: 9/25

Acrobatics: 1/50

Taijutsu, Hard: 50/100

!Power Overwhelming

Small projectiles: 14/100

Large projectiles: 1/100

Melee Weapons: 1/100

Tracking: 10/100

Stealth: 10/100

Interrogation: 1/100

Resist Interrogation: 1/100

Speech:19/100

-Leadership: 1/100

Jinchūriki, basic: 12/50

Knowledges:

General: 5/100

World History: 1/100

Konoha history: 10/100

Chakra Theory: 2/100

Tactics: 10/100


	6. Chapter 6

AN: The chapter in which I do a full dice determined battle from full HP to zero, and in which the dice determine a major and lasting point of the story. I'm satisfied with how things played out, personally, though your mileage may vary.

...

**"An update is available!"**

It wasn't the best alarm clock to wake up to, but Naruto absentmindedly tapped it as he rose from the bed and wiped the sleep from his eyes.

**"Update complete. The number of miscellaneous skills was excessive and distracting. It has been reduced. For example, cooking has been rolled into a single skill rather than individual dishes."**

To be fair, it did help him quite a bit, and opening his menu he noticed that his high ramen skill had been translated into a moderate cooking skill of 10. He dispatched his clone to cook breakfast as usual while he took a shower, and when he was finished he was treated to bacon, eggs, toast and fruit. He had to admit as he ate it that there was definitely something more...satisfying about it than ramen. It didn't displace it as his favorite food, but his body just felt...better for it. He also earned a cooking level for the meal.

**"You're well fed. Temporary +1 bonus to physical stats. Different consumables provide different bonuses. Better foods provide better bonuses."**

Well. That would explain it. Instead of dispatching the clone, he sent it out to work on raising it's ability to cook. His income didn't afford him wasting too much of it on ingediants, and something felt wrong about just tossing all the food away, so for the moment the clone would be primarily reading books on the subject. Maybe he should look into gathering his own, in the near future?

He made another clone as he headed out the door, dispatching it to handle his D ranked mission with his team today. Short of dealing with Tora the cat, who had a tendency to dispel his clone, none of the D ranked missions really warranted his real body to be present, and he had a meeting with the special training grounds today.

It's not that the D ranked missions were useless. He knew that they served a vital role in the village, helped with team work, and gave him income. If he didn't have shadow clones to allow him to be in more than one place at a time he would begrudgingly do them. Of course, the small amount of exp and random miscellaneous skills some of them offered were good incentives as well.

He entered the training grounds and the menu popped up before him. He quickly selected the option with the most fun attached, and looked over his choices for opponent.

Unfortunately, all the "Normal" options were above his level, with only things like "Pre-training" and the like actually being near him. He wondered if compared to these other worlds if academy training was really that far behind? He'd managed to beat Goku, but the kid had been younger than him and it'd indicated that he hadn't even really began his training at all.

It didn't really matter, he supposed. He picked the option for "Royal prodigy, pre lightning" whatever that meant.

...

A large area phased into reality around him, stone floor below and buildings surrounding him. It seemed as though he was in an arena of some kind, the area itself being extremely open. The only other living figure in the area was a girl, seeming about his age, leaning against a stone piller with her arms crossed over her chest, giving him an odd look. She had a sharp face, dark hair, bangs, and was dressed in black, red and gold. She was quite attractive in a very dangerous way, if he was being honest with himself.

"So you're the one father has arranged for me to train with today." She gave him an appraising look, seemingly unimpressed by his appearance.

"Well...I guess something like that." He said somewhat sheepishly. "I'm Naru..." He words were cut off in a slight yelp as he had to dive to the side, avoiding an oncoming rush of blue fire the girl had launched from her fist. Another went past as he continued to roll, and he twisted on the ground and dived past a third intending to close the distance.

A kick from the girl sent a crescent wave across the ground which required him to leap over. His hand quickly reached into a vest and sent a handful of kunai in a sweep as the laws of physics bit him in the ass and a wave of fire washed over him in the air where he couldn't dodge.

He landed, still smoldering, and discarded his burning jacket as he took advantage of her momentary pause in fire power as she twisted through his own ranged attack to close into melee distance, striking out with a simple punch towards her face.

She brought her arm up to deflect it away, missing her timing, and earning a powerful jab to the eye causing her to stumble back a step as Naruto pivoted to strike with a straight kick.

The girl pivoted to the side and avoided the kick while at the same time attempting to sweep his own feet out from under him, flames sweeping out with the motion.

The kick caught him, causing some burning, but he was able to maintain his footing. He brought his extended leg to the ground, hard, and leaped off with an attempt to knee her in the sternum, connection with a crack that lifted her off of her feet and sent her arcing backwards.

She landed in a handstand and sent another arc of fire at him as she flipped back on to her feet, which left a burn across his forearms as he protected his face from the heat. With a series of handseals he made a clone behind her and swapped place with it, attempt to land a haymaker to the back of her skull.

Another satisfying crack and she fell forwards, catching herself in a position resembling a pushup before she twisted her body around like a top unleashing a spiral of flame in all directions.

His arms took the brunt of the assault once more, searing flesh and giving him second degree burns as he cursed his lack of offensive jutsu. His clone faired better, leaping over the fire in a twist, bringing an axe kick down at her head.

She retaliated by striking upwards, catching his clone in it's shadow balls and dispelling it, the feedback giving Naruto a momentary pause as he struck at her spine. This moments hesitation gave her just enough time to twist with it and throw a punch at his face, a fireball leaping to life only inches from it.

He managed to bat the arm up and away from his face, the fire scorching some of his hair as it fired off, and awarding her efforts with a powerful punch to her ribs. A slight crack resounded through the arena a she took a single step back, bringing her foot up from the ground in a straight arc towards his face, blue fire generating through the distance.

He took the full force of the crescent as he avoided trying to dodge it, instead barreling through it, grabbing her around the waist and body slamming her against the stone ground, knocking the wind out of her.

The exhaled wind rapidly heated up, turning into a burst of blue fire itself as Naruto cursed. being unable to dodge, instead closing his eyes and bringing his head down through the torrent of flames and striking her with a glorified head butt.

She went limp under him and he rolled off to the side breathing rapid, painful breaths. That was by far the closest fight he'd ever engaged in, and it took him longer than he'd like to admit before her felt comfortable wearily standing back up.

A groan brought his attention back to the girl, and he noticed that she was beginning to stir back into the realm of consciousness. When her eyes finally opened back up they were greeted by a hand offered in her direction to help her back to her feet. She smacked the hand away and began to raise, stumbling in the process. Naruto quickly grabbed her, helping her to stabilize.

After a moment she pushed away from him and awkwardly took a few steps forwards before turning to face him, the look she gave him was slightly more approving than the original one, though it was quickly replaced by a scowl.

"Where did you learn that brutish fighting style? I have at least a passing familiarity with all documented styles and that was like none that exist. Calling it a martial art would be a disservice to martial arts."

He grinned sheepishly. "I kinda developed it myself. No one every really taught me anything about fighting."

"That would...explain it." She murmured. "You're the first opponent father has found for me that's managed to win in some time."

He smiled. "You're really awesome yourself. I almost lost, you know. It was really close."

She smirked in response, as if to say, of course. "I'm Azula."

He held out his hand. "Naruto."

She stared at the offending appendage for a moment.

"Oh, come on. Don't be like that. I won, you at least owe me a handshake."

She rolled her eyes before reaching out and giving a half hearted shake. "If the peasant's reward for winning is the grace of being allowed to touch me, I suppose I can grant you that small pleasure...you should come back tomorrow, so I can wipe that grin off your face."

He was about to respond when the world around him faded around.

**"Princess Azula; Defeated!**

**+10,000 EXP!**

**You've earned "Bending."**

**Bending; The art of enhancing marital arts with an element. Your skill with this will be limited by the higher of your Taijutsu or Nature manipulation.**

**+5 Taijutsu, +5 Shape manipulation.**

**Level up!**

**Level up!"**

He gawked at the two level ups, though it made sense. He had almost leveled up due to all the D rank missions he'd been running. Azula had basically been worth a level herself. He dropped all 4 stat points into Speed. Taijutsu was his primary means of dealing damage, though with what he'd been up against so far his damage output seemed sufficient. More so, he figured hard style was likely to give him further damage output, and his actual ability to hit was fine thus far. He put 20 points into Taijutsu, raising it to 75, 13 points into his Jinchuriki skill to bring it to 25, and the remaining points into the newly unlocked Nature manipulation.

**"Hard Style has reached 75 points. You've gained the "Obsessive Training" trait.**

**Obsessive Training; You gain a bonus equal to 1/2 your level to Strength, rounded down. This is retroactive."**

**"Jinchuriki; Basic has reached 25 points. You've unlocked Regeneration. Your HP and Chakra regenerate at 1/4 your power per turn, rounded down."**

Of course, he also had a new level based trait to select.

**"Jack of All Trades: Gain extra skill points per level equal to 1/2 your intelligence, rounded down. Not retroactive, though works with current level. Mutually exclusive with Master of None."**

**"Master of None: Gain an extra Attribute point per level. Not retroactive, though works with current level. Mutually exclusive with Jack of All Trades."**

**"Advanced Study: Gain a level."**

Well. Advanced study seemed like the most immediately useful, but both Jack and Master worked on his current level, and not retroactively. He'd get more benifit in the long run by choosing one of them. As good as Master of None looked, there were a ton of skills that he was interested in learning, and Jack scaled with his intelligence as well rather than a static bonus. He went ahead and selected Jack of All Trades, assigning two points to Nature Manipulation, and 6 points to Speech, raising them both to 25.

**"Nature Manipulation; Randomly unlocks your primary element. This allows you to learn moves of the element at an increased rate, and lowers the effort and chakra cost of such moves."**

**Lightning: 1-19**

**Fire: 20-38**

**Water: 39-57**

**Earth: 58-76**

**Wind: 77-95**

**Kekkei genkai: 96-100**

Numbers rapidly flashed on the screen before settling on...**97**. If he remembered correctly, Kekkei genkais were bloodline abilities that mixed two elements together to form special abilities. That would be...hard to explain, he'd imagine. He could probably blame it on the Kyuubi or something, though he'd see how that played out. Wasn't like he wouldn't get another chance if he messed it up.

Two sets of random numbers appeared on the screen before settling on **17** and **73**. Lightning and Earth? What would that...

**"Magnetic Release."**

A smile came across his face. Getting a Kekkei Genkai out of nowhere was pretty awesome. But having something like Magnetism, where he could see a ton of awesome uses for? Even better.

**"Speech: Seduction or Lying?"**

**"Seduction: Gain a +15 bonus when engaging in a romantic related skill check."**

**"Lying: Gain a +15 bonus when attempting to fib."**

This one wasn't really a choice, to be honest. With all the crazy shit that was likely to happen, being able to lie his ass off would be for the best.

He checked over his stats and was pretty pleased with the end result. One thing he noticed was the Nature Manipulation had become Magnetic Manipulation, and there was a new Nature Manipulation sitting at 0/200. He assumed that any time he raised Nature Manipulation to 25, it would unlock a new element (or bloodline) and transfer the points over to the new one. Well, looks like he wouldn't be mastering all elements simply by raising a single skill to 200 points.

**"You've unlocked a new element. When you unlock a new element, you gain a single technique at 10 Ranks. Think of what you want the technique to do and the system will generate one for you."**

It made sense. Having an element was cool, but all it was at the moment was numbers on paper without any technique to back it up. He knew from what he vaguely remembered that it was possible to manipulate elements directly, but that tended to be a mixture of precise control and much higher levels of mastery than "I just learned my element!" He could probably brute force it with enough chakra, but he imagined that would likely be taxing even for him.

What could he do with Magnetics? He could defect metal projectiles or increase the speed of his own. In theory, he could levitate himself by wearing metal, though he'd have to design an outfit specifically for that. He didn't imagine gliding through the air hanging on to a kunai or his brass knuckles would be particularly awesome.

He could increase the speed of melee attacks via a magnetic effect, though now that he thought about it, wasn't there something about equal and opposite reactions with forces? He'd have to manipulate the local magnetic forces around him rather than just the magnetic forces of an object in relation to him to effect anything attached to him, be it flight or a melee attack. But if he unlocked the skill, he'd understand the basics of it anyways.

"Magnetic Punch!" He thought in his head.

**"Error; Affecting localized magnetic fields is beyond your mastery of Magnetic Release."**

He wasn't particularly disappointed. He imagined something like that would be the case. Which left him his original ideas. Magnetic shield or projectiles. At the moment, his offensive ability was already fairly impressive, so he decided to go with a magnetic shield. The only real question from a design standpoint was if he wanted it to be a targeted effect, which would likely be less chakra intensive, or an AoE...but that really wasn't a question. He had the chakra, and he'd put it to use. And if he was thinking correctly about how it would function. He thought about the specifics in his head.

**"Technique Created: Magnetic Dome; Creates a magnetic field out to 10 feet around you that repels incoming metal outwards. Has a Strength of 10."**

He smirked at his own intelligence. If he threw a projectile at the field, when it hit the field itself, it would rapidly accelerate as though he'd thrown it with 10 points of strength higher than he possessed. Further, it would drain 10 strength worth of force from any incoming attack, stopping weaker attacks out right, and reducing the speed and damage of stronger ones.

The world faded back in to normal, and Naruto sat on the ground to work things out. Force = Mass * Acceleration. For practical purposes, the mass and acceleration would be proportionate to the rate at which the person could throw. If he threw something heavier, he wouldn't be able to apply the same acceleration, but it would roughly balance out. How could he get around the limitation of human mechanics?

It was time to learn Archery.

**"Archery skill unlocked. 1/100."**

Excellent.

The only real limitation that he'd run into with his new technique was that it was a dome external of himself, meaning if someone closed the distance they'd be able to engage him in melee without worry.

Which is exactly what his enemies would think, when they saw him using magnetics to fight at range and deflect projectiles, they'd close to engage in melee, and he'd show them that he was in reality a close ranged brawler.

This was...good. Very good.

"Hey. Naruto." Interrupted his thoughts, and he turned to glance over his shoulder at one Kakashi who was lazily leaning against a tree.

"I understand that D rank missions are boring, but it's good for learning team work. I'd appreciate it if you actually showed up."

Naruto grinned at the older shinobi and shrugged, tapping his head. "Anything the clones do, I get back. So I really am there. I mean, it's a me that can only take one hit, but I've been showing up for the missions involving the cat myself for that reason."

An appraising look came to Kakashi's eye. "You've already figured out that trick eh? You really are full of surprises...that said, don't overdo it. The feedback could send you into a coma or kill you."

Naruto shrugged. "My limit at the moment is about 7 clones. If I get better at controlling my chakra, I could do more by managing the chakra feedback from managing the hive mind better."

Kakashi nodded. "Well. As long as you know your limits, I suppose it's ok. As leader of this team, though, I need to know everything you're capable of to make informed decisions on how the team operates. I don't suppose you're hiding any other tricks?"

He thought about it, deciding against telling him about the game skills. Not that Kakashi would believe him.

"Well, you probably already know I'm a Jinchuriki for the ninetailed fox. I've got a ton of chakra because of that, probably more than most Jounin not that I have empirical evidence of that, and I heal and replenish chakra very quickly. I've also recently been toying around with elemental manipulation, and discovered that I have a magnetic bloodline."

This caused Kakashi to pause for a moment. "Most adults are aware of your status, though I'd be careful of who else you inform. The bloodline seems farfetched, though. The only person I'm aware of that possessed it was a previous Kazekage."

Naruto ran through a few seals, and felt a drain on his chakra. Quickly, he pulled out a kunai and tossed it in Kakashi's direction. On hitting the field it did rapidly increase though went slightly off course to the point where Kakashi didn't even have to dodge, though his eyes did shoot wide at the sudden increase in velocity. Looked like he'd have to practice to get the hang out that down. Experimentally Kakashi lightly tossed one back and watched it repel off seemingly midair and fall to the ground harmlessly.

"That's...intriguing, and very powerful. You've already got the making of a very strong Shinobi Naruto. I'd even go so far as place your skills and abilities at mid Chuunin with the capacity for rapid growth..."

Kakashi dashed forwards, seeming to slow down slightly as he passed through the field, the metal he was wearing seeming to suffer for it. As a result Naruto was ready for him, greeting his charge with the stronger side kick he could bring to bare. The kick connected solidly with Kakashi's chest, lifting him off the ground and sending him flying a few feet, enough to catch him in the field and cause him to fly backwards, a few parting kunai hitting the field a moment after and rapidly accelerating. Three went wide missing, but a single one managed to cut Kakashi's bicep.

Kakashi held up a hand singling Naruto to stop.

"Solid Chuunin indeed, even accounting for me holding back. If they're not prepared for you, you could likely bring down a lot of Jounin." His voice was moderately impressed.

Naruto grinned and sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "Thanks, Kakashi. I guess you're not an average Jounin?"

"Eh? Oh, no, probably not." He shrugged. "This gives me some things to think about. For the moment, I think I'll be making you second in command in the squad, and starting tomorrow we'll be doing C ranked missions, so I expect you to actually show up."

Naruto nodded. "Sounds good, Kakashi, though if I'm actually going to show up, you need to show up on time."

Kakashi paused, before nodding. "I can agree to that, at least for the first mission."

"Good, see you first thing in the morning for our C rank."

"Indeed. Don't stay out too late." And with a Shushin, Kakashi was gone.

Naruto turned back to the field and brought up the menu. He might be able to squeeze out one more level and a handful of skills by doing some of the advanced training. Hopefully, the system would be kind enough to provide him with a bow for his archery as he didn't currently possess one.

...

The advanced training had been, more or less, pretty standard fair. He'd completed Beginner archery, earning 5 points to the skill, a slightly faster knock and aiming, and a +1 to his precision. It'd consisted of just hitting targets on a range. Intermediate had involved hitting targets moving with genin levels speeds and a time limit, and he'd given up after a dozen times. He guessed it was possible for him to pass, but for the moment it seemed statistically unlikely.

Training magnetic dome had involved bringing it down and up in time with incoming attacks, and he'd passed it pretty easily, earning 5 points to the skill and lowering it's chakra cost slightly.

Beginner Taijutsu had been cake, requiring him to strike several targets in rapid succession for points. Intermediate Taijutsu had required him beat Sauske in a spar while deflecting a bunch of incoming projectiles. It was another case where it seemed like his skills were in excess of the challenge, though it did take him two tries. He unlocked a +10 bonus to the skill, and +1 to each of strength, reflex, speed and endurance.

He'd had to fight the current versions of his classmates to earn just enough EXP to level. While they had all gotten a little better, they hadn't improved at near the rate he had. He could choose to face their entire teams at once, but he held off for the moment. It seemed as though the passage of time when he was training was slower, but not at a complete standstill. It was finally starting to get dark, and he'd skipped lunch without realizing it. He went ahead and leveled up before heading home.

+1 to his speed brought it up to the levels Kakashi had shown while holding back, and a +1 to his precision would help him hit with his bow. He had figured out reflex affected your ability to dodge, Precision helped hit with ranged attacks, and speed helped land melee attacks, as well as movement. At the moment, he could reliably land hits on people above Genin, but he'd be taking almost everything they threw back. As his skill set between regeneration and damage reduction to physical attacks allowed him to take significant punishment, this didn't seem like a bad way to handle things.

He had 33 skill points to spend with his new trait. 15 went to maxing his taijutsu, 10 points into his magnetic dome, and the last 8 points went into archery.

**"Mastery of Hard Fist: Gates Unlocked."**

**"Gates: Increases physical abilities, at a price."**

**"Initial Gate Unlocked; Increases Strength, Reflex, and Speed by 2 points each. Costs 5 HP per turn."**

**"Taijutsu capped. Further increases require training under a master."**

**"Magnetic Dome; Strengthen or Precise?"**

**"Strengthen: Increases the strength of magnetic dome by 1/2 your power, rounded down."**

**"Precise: Allows no loss of Precision when attacking out of the Dome."**

A no brainier. He picked up precise for his dome upgrade. While he was sure he could eventually compensate for it, if he had allies in the dome it would allow them to attack out as well. Next level he'd probably drop two points into power so he could leave the initial gate open without hurting himself whenever he didn't need to actually heal.

After that eventful day, and three levels stronger, he headed home for the night to rest up for his mission.

Name: Uzumaki Naruto

Rank: Genin

HP: 110

Chakra: 500

Level: 10

EXP: 1000/10000

Strength: 16

Reflex: 11

Speed: 20

Precision: 12

Endurance: 11

Control: 15

Power: 10

Intelligence: 16

Charisma: 12

Traits:

Jinchūriki

Prodigy

Taijutsu Prodigy

Martial Artist(Beginner)

Deny Fate

Juggernaut

Bending

Obsessive Training

Regeneration

Jack of All Trades

Flaws:

Hated (Konoha adults)

Skills:

Bunshin: 13/25

Kage Bunshin Suicide: 50/50

Henge: 9/25

Kawarmi: 9/25

Precise Magnetic Dome: 25/50

Acrobatics: 1/50

Powerful Taijutsu, Hard: 100/100

Gates: 25/200

Archery: 14/100

Small projectiles: 14/100

Large projectiles: 1/100

Melee Weapons: 1/100

Tracking: 10/100

Stealth: 10/100

Interrogation: 1/100

Resist Interrogation: 1/100

Speech: 25/100

-Leadership: 1/100

!Lying: (+15)

Jinchūriki, basic: 25/50

Magnetic Manipulation: 25/200

Nature Manipulation: 0/200

Knowledges:

General: 5/100

World History: 1/100

Konoha history: 10/100

Chakra Theory: 2/100

Tactics: 10/100


	7. Chapter 7

AN: Yeah. Naruto's getting pretty OP. He's as good at Taijutsu as anyone can get without training further under a master, for example. That said, he wouldn't even be able to land a hit on someone like Gai or Kakashi in a straight fight at the moment. Gai is obviously beyond the maximum cap for Taijutsu, and Kakashi's raw stats are just too high. That's without either one of them bringing out their trumps (Gates and Sharingan, respectively.) Tactics, flanking, positioning, etc. can add bonuses and penalties to rolls, of course. But Naruto's current limit is likely most chuunin in a straight fight and weaker Jounin with appropriate tactics.

The chapter in which Naruto's bad tactics and rolls fuck him.

Two chapters today. Off work for the week, and have an itch to write.

...

His clones hard work the past day had led to his cooking skill making it to rank 25, giving him the option between Chef or survivalist. Chef would allow him to prepare meals for people, given a proper kitchen, that would net everyone eating it a +2 bonus to their physical stats for 6 hours. Survivalist was the same thing, but only at a +1. The benefit was that it allowed him to do so even without proper ingredients, such as when traveling. Given that he had a mission coming up, he went with Survivalist.

He had chosen to wake up an hour early to head down to the shop to pick himself up a bow. Given that his knuckles were his primary weapon, the bow he was going to have to pay for out of pocket. Not a big deal, but it was a minor annoyance. Entering the shop, he walked up to the counter and saw Tenten once more working.

"Don't you, ya know, do team stuff and training at some point?"

She looked slightly embarrassed. "Well. Telling my team that I have to work the shops in the morning is the only way I get to avoid their morning training. Neji claims "Hyuuga family obligations himself."

He gave her a look. "You can't really be a strong ninja if you're avoiding training."

She shuddered slightly. "Morning training consists of waking up at 4am and running laps around Konoha, climbing the monument, or punching trees until 9am when the rest of the team normally meets."

He gawked. What kind of monster was her sensei? And more so, the one genin that actually showed up? "Ah...I see."

"Anyhow, what brings you in?"

"I developed some skills yesterday, and I think a bow would really fit them."

"Hm. A bow? Not many shinobi use bows. We've got some, no problem there, but the issues is that bows typically are tailored to the strength of the user. You know, the more strength you can apply, the higher pound draw you can handle. Hang out." She reached under the counter and pulled out a "Be right back" sign and placed it on top.

"Let's head out to one of the training grounds and we'll get you messured for a bow. With some luck, we'll have something in stock for you."

He followed after her. "Sounds good."

...

When they arrived, she activated a seal and a few bows popped into existance. "Go ahead and give that a pull and see how it feels."

He nodded and drew the bow back, the feel of it something more akin to a toy than a weapon. She noticed the lack of strain and snapped it away before handing him another one.

This one hand a lot more resistance to it, but was still fairly easy to pull into place. He knocked an arrow she'd handed him with it and let it fly at a tree, striking within an inch of where he'd aimed.

"Alright, that one should be good for you, though I'm pretty impressed with your strength. You're definitely the physically strongest Genin I know... besides Lee, but he's a freak."

"I could handle a bow with a higher draw then this, actually."

She shook her head. "You don't want to use the highest draw you can manage. You'll wear yourself out faster, and it will take longer to draw and knock than you can rely on in battle. It's good for showing off, sure, but not very practical."

He nodded. It made sense, but.

"What if I had a way to increase my strength? Wouldn't that help?"

She raised an eyebrow inquisitively. "And how would you manage that?"

"Well, I can open the first gate..."

She gawked. Not just a little bit, she gawked hard. "Those are..."

A high yell of "YOSH!" Interrupted her, as a large male, rocking green spandex, a bowl cut and a Jounin jacket seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"Did my youthful ears hear correctly? Can this young apprentice of Kakashi's really open one of the 8 gates?"

Naruto stumbled back and almost tripped as the man seemed to appear out of nowhere, his speed way beyond Kakashi's.

"Erm...yeah. Uh, who are you?"

"Oh, this is my Jounin-sensei, Maito Gai."

Gai crossed his arms over his chest and observed Naruto with a series expression. "Show me."

Naruto nodded and activated the ability, feeling a sudden rush through his body. At the same time, he felt a very, very small amount of strain the majority of it negated by his regeneration.

There was no outwardly visible effect, as far as he could see, but it did feel as though his muscles and all tensed at once on activation. He threw a punch experimentally and felt it almost fly into existence as all his muscles were primed to their full existent.

"Wow. This is amazing."

Gai continued to regard him with a serious look. "Indeed, youthful Genin..."

He scowled. "My name is Naruto."

"Indeed, youthful Naruto." Gai corrected himself. "Though I must question Kakashi's wisdom, The gates can inflict great harm on the body, and in order to truly utilize them, one must have skill in Taijutsu."

Naruto shrugged. "Kakashi didn't teach me. As a matter of fact, I was just training my Taijutsu yesterday and it seemed to...come to me."

Gai seemed slightly disbeliving, raising an arm out before him. "Show me."

That was all the inivitation Naruto needed. He rushed forwards and struck out with a strong punch, which Gai easily caught, before Naruto followed up with a spinning kick. Gai took a step back, effortlessly blocking the kick as Naruto lept off his planted leg aiming a follow up kick as Gai's head. The Jounin blocked this one as well before striking out with his own punch, catching Naruto in the chest and sending him flying back, bouncing off the ground several times before he came to rest.

"That's enough." Gai said, his voice pleased. "Your skills are certainly that of a Jounin specialist of hard fist, though you don't have the physical prowess of one. Your speed is almost there, though your strength is somewhat lacking, and your reflexes are abysmal. Still, I wouldn't expect anyone short of a Chuunin who prioritized Taijutsu to be anywhere near your skill. Well. Almost anyone. How have you become this skilled?"

Naruto shrugged as he stood up, letting the gate drop so his body could repair the damage from that punch. A single blow had almost laid him out. "I was terrible at chakra control in the academy, so I spent almost all my time practicing Taijutsu the past few years."

Lie...successful.

"YOSH!" Naruto found himself suddenly picked up and lifted by the large man before being spun and then released back to his feet somewhat dazed. "It seems as though young Lee has a rival! You should come and train with us, and allow your flames of youth to burn together!"

Naruto smiled, a warm feeling coming over him at actually being desired.

"That would be awesome...but I can't today. We're going on our first C ranked mission."

Gai nodded. "Of course. I wouldn't get in the way of your youthful service to the village. When you get back, seek up out. I can help refine the skills that you already had, and specialize them to an even greater level."

"Thanks, Gai sensei. Speaking of which, though, I need to get over to meet with my team. Hey Tenten, how much do I owe you for this?"

She seemed to come out of a daze, muttering something about taijutsu nuts before she waved him off. "Don't worry about it. When you get back from your mission we'll settle up." She pulled out another scroll and opened it up, revealing a quiver. Another seal opened to a ton of arrows. She cut her finger and inscribed something on the inside of the quiver before putting all of the arrows in it.

"Here. There are about 200 arrows in there, the ones beyond what you can see inscribed in the seal. Just put a little of your chakra into it and if it's empty it will refill itself. If it's not, it will store the arrows that are currently in it."

He took the quiver and gave her a quick hug, not noticing the blush that came across her face. "Thanks Tenten. You're the best. I'll see you when I get back!"

And with that he took off through the trees, heading to meet up with his team.

...

"You're late." Kakashi deadpanned while his team looked at him with...begrudging respect? That was amusing. He assumed it was for turning the tables on the Jounin for a change.

"Well. I was going to be here on time you see, when an excitable green beast of Konoha ran into me, and I had to hang out with it for a little bit."

Kakashi nodded as though it made the most sense in the world, and both of his teammates rolled their eyes.

"Be that as it may, we went ahead and got the mission while you were occupied."

"We're escorting a bridge builder to Wave." Sakura cut it.

"If you'd call this drunk..." Sauske began, giving a gesture over his shoulder. "A bridge builder."

The indicated old man growled before taking a swig of his drink. "I'll have you know I'm a great engineer."

"Engineer you say?" Naruto said with a smile, sensing the opportunity for some miscellaneous skills. "That sounds awesome. What's your name Jiji?"

He moved forwards and offered his hand, which the old man shook. "Nice to see some respect. It's Tazuna."

"Cool. Uzumaki Naruto. Any chance you could teach me some things on the way?"

The old man stroke his beard in thought. "Hm. I suppose there's no harm in it."

"Awesome!" And with that, Naruto led the way, chatting up the old man about engineering while his bewildered team followed after them.

...

The trip thus far had been quite exciting. Naruto was eagerly absorbing everything that Tazuna was talking about, earning himself a cool 3 levels in engineering as a result. Tazuna was happy to actually have some conversation along the way, more so someone that was actually interested in what he did for a living.

His conversation was brought to a rather dramatic halt as two ninja appeared out of nowhere, catching Kakashi between their chains, and tearing him apart. Naruto reflexively opened the first gate as he watched the happen.

They dashed forwards, seemingly with the intention to catch Naruto within the chains that trailed between them. Anger flashed across his face as he ran through seals, activating his new bloodline and creating his magnetic dome around his allies. That done, he reached up and grabbed his bow and an arrow, bringing it down. This play through was shot. Hell if he was going to let Kakashi stay dead. No harm in running wild until he reset it.

The enemies metal laden bodies, as well as the massive chain, met the field and they significantly slowed, eyes widening in confusion. At the same time, two kunai flew from Sauske, catching one of the pair in the chest as he staggered through the field. A moment later, an arrow from Naruto stuck in the same targets chest and he let out a angry scream from the pain, losing his footing momentarily and causing him to stumble falling back and out of the field.

The other opponent released his chain to not get drawn back, and snatched a kunai from inside his cloak to toss at Tazuna. Metal met flesh as it logged itself in Sakura's arm as she stepped in front of the client, taking the attack that was meant for him.

Naruto dropped the bow, drew a knuckle on his right hand, and crossed the distance faster than any of those present could track, cracking the opponent in the chest with a punch, stunning him for a moment from the sheer force of it, feeling his muscles tear slightly and his bones jar from the force of it, his healing factor being busy reducing the impact of the gates and unable to regenerate the damage from the force of the hit.

He grabbed the opponent head as he was stunned, kneeing him in the face sending a splattering of blood from a busted nose. A stabbing pain in his side told him the opponent had recovered from the daze, and he responded by kneeing him in the face once more, feeling him go limp with another spray of blood.

One down.

He looked up in time to see the other enemy jump out of a burst of flames Sasuke had unleashed, and took advantage of the target being airborn by charging forwards and leaping up.

A bladed gauntlet attempted to stab him in the face, and he dodged by twisting in a sidewards motion, bringing his heal down on the back of his enemies head, propelling him into the grounds with a crunch. He didn't move after that, though it didn't stop Naruto.

He walked forwards and raised his leg up, but as he brought it down a pair of hands grabbed it.

"That's enough, Naruto."

Naruto stumbled back and fell over at the shock of Kakashi crouching there, alive and well.

"I appreciate your...enthusiasm." Kakashi began. "But sometimes it's better to take enemies alive when they have information you might need."

Naruto stood up an dusted himself off, allowing the gate to fall so his regeneration could start making the repairs to his body. He also absentmindedly shut down his magnetic dome.

"I wasn't going to kill him. I was just making sure he wasn't getting back up."

Kakashi's raised an eyebrow at him. "Naruto, another hit like that and he'd be dead as well."

As well? Naruto glanced up and noticed that, despite some shocked looks from Sakura, and an appraising one from Sauske, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Well, besides the mangled body of his other opponent, who had an expanding pool of red under his face.

"Oh...is he?"

"Yes. That tends to happen when you cave someone's skull in."

"I see. I'm just going to..." Naruto calmly walked to the side of the road, dropped to his knees, and proceeded to hurl out his breakfast, just vaguely aware of the notification that he'd lost his well fed bonus.

After he was done losing his food, he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Sakura standing there. "It's...it's alright Naruto. You thought they killed Kakashi, and you were protecting us..."

Naruto nodded and stood up, uneasy, eyes glancing at Sakura's new metal arm accessory. "You might want to have Kakashi look at that."

She nodded and gave Naruto a concerned look. "What about you? I saw you get stabbed in the side."

Naruto shrugged and pulled up his jacket, grinning at Sakura's shocked look as it stitched itself back together before her eyes. "I heal fast. Because of...um...my bloodline."

Lie...failed.

"I didn't see how magnetic could cause rapidly healing, Naruto." She said as she took a step away from him, eyeing him cautiously.

Well. So much for that. He guessed her seeing him use magnet release had significantly increased the difficulty of that lie. Otherwise it would have been pretty easy to convince her that his never heard of bloodline gave him rapid healing.

"Don't worry about it, Sakura." Kakashi said as he came up behind her. "Naruto's ability is documented with the village. Let's get that wound looked at."

She paused for a moment before nodding, walking off to the side with Kakashi. Naruto watched as Kakashi pulled out the kunai and disinfected the wound before rapping it in bandages.

"Miscellaneous skill; Field Medicine unlocked. 1/50"

He was thankful it was a Miscellaneous ability, though it made sense. Ijutsu, actual healing techniques, would be a primary skill. Just bandaging up wounds and stuff shouldn't require him to spend points on them.

"Dobe." Sasuke said as he walked up.

"Yes, teme?"

"When we get back, we're training together."

"Hn." Was Naruto's response. That was pretty much the closest thing he'd heard to a compliment out of the teme's mouth.

...

It was revealed, after questioning Tazuna and the enemy ninja, that their client had lied about the mission, and that they could expect to run into one Zabuza if they continued on. Naruto had talked with Kakashi and they'd agreed to continue on with the mission, though they'd be renegotiating the contract. With Naruto there, Kakashi felt the squad was competent enough to handle Zabuza, though the three genin were warned not to engage the opponent directly as he was a solid A rank Jounin and beyond even Naruto's ability to deal with. Kakashi would be taking point if they encountered him, with their own job to defend the client.

He'd earned some 4000 exp from the fight, which probably would have been enough to level if he hadn't been power leveling himself earlier, but as was only put him half way to his goal.

Naruto prepared them all a meal of rabbit seasoned with local herbs that night, earning some admiration from the group with his cooking ability. He chalked it up to living on his own and the shop keepers ripping him off and they seemed to buy it, though Sakura had a concerned look on her face which filled him with some warmth.

It wasn't until they'd made it into wave proper that Zabuza showed his face.

Naruto was chatting absently with Tazuna as Kakashi investigated some rustling in the bushes. Suddenly Kakashi dived to the side as he yelled at everyone to get down.

Noticing a massive blade heading towards the group, Naruto threw up his magnetic dome, eyes raising in shock as the huge blade flew threw it. It slowed it down, but it wasn't enough to negate the time he'd lost actually activating the jutsu. He attempted to dodge it, activating the gate for the extra speed, but the edge of the blade tore through his chest in a torrent of blood not even pausing. As it hit the other side of the shield it regained it's momentum and slammed into a tree. As he collapsed to his knees clutching his side he allowed the gate to drop, hoping his regeneration could nit him back together while he absently took note of the mechanics of something flying through both ends and thought he could put it to good use in the future.

That single attack have obliterated over half his HP, though. What kind of monster were they dealing with?

"Sharingan Kakashi..." The man that suddenly appeared on the blade said absently. "It's no wonder the demon brothers failed."

"Surround and protect Naruto and the client." Kakashi barked at them as he uncovered his eye.

"Ohh? I already get to see the Sharingan? I'm honored." Zabuza's voice had a slight mocking tone to it.

"Zabuza, you'll have to fight me to get to your target."

"Hmm."

Zabuza vanished from his position, reappearing on top of the water. After a few moments, a heavy mist filled the area.

"Be careful. He's a master of the art of silent killing. The mist will block your vision, and he won't make any sounds."

"8 Choices." The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once.

"Liver, Lungs, Spine, Clavicle vein, Neck vein, brain, Kidneys, heart. Which one should I go after?"

"Don't worry. I'll protect you with my life. I won't let anyone on my team die." Kakashi reassured them.

It wasn't very effective, as Zabuza was suddenly in the middle of them. "We'll see about that."

Naruto was quick in his seals, forming three shadow clones, tackling his two teammates and Sakura to the ground. Zabuza raised his sword to bring it down on Naruto, and despite his fear he noticed the weapon suffered no resistance from it. He already knew the weapon was metal, which meant this wasn't Zabuza.

"Clone!" Naruto called out, even as Kakashi interrupted Zabuza from cleaving Naruto in two by stabbing the water clone in the gut.

What followed was clone tag, as "Kakashi" was cut in two, "Zabuza" had a kunai placed to his neck, and then the real Zabuza punted Kakashi into the nearby body of water.

He took a step forwards and then paused, raising his blade into the air. "Not bad, kid. Working with Kakashi you could actually be a hinderance. Better end you here. Consider it a compliment."

He brought the blade down and Naruto froze, looking for options. He started the seals for the replacement technique a moment too slow. He felt the warm sensation of blood on his face and expected the game over screen, but opened his eyes to a wide eyed Zabuza who'd cleaved his blade from Sasuke's shoulder to his hip, cutting clean through a blocking kunai in the process.

Naruto forgot about healing as in his rage he opened the first gate and dived forwards as Zabuza was removing his blade from the corpse of his team mate. He drove his fist into Zabuza's face as hard as he could, breaking his nose in a small spray of blood. He could feel the muscles of Zabuza's face twist into a nasty smile of appreciation before he uppercut Naruto. The world went black as he heard his neck snap.

...

**"You've died."**

"Yeah, no shit. Having your neck snapped tends to do that."

**"Achievement earned; Worth Killing. Silver +5000 EXP."**

Naruto tapped it as he popped his neck. He hadn't actually felt any pain from it, but the sensation was...quite unfortunate.

**"Worth Killing; Bronze: 2000 EXP. Convince Zabuza you're worth taking some time to kill before dealing with Kakashi."**

**"Worth Killing; Silver: 3000 EXP. Successfully land a hit against Zabuza."**

**"Worth Killing; Gold: 20000 EXP. Successfully defeat Zabuza, mono a mono."**

He didn't see himself earning that last one any time soon, though it being enough exp to level from 20-21 told him about the level range he should be at to attempt it, so he put Zabuza's level somewhere around 40 to 50.

His death had some consolation with the whole leveling thing. Two points into power to negate the gate drain. He attempted to raise his Gates to unlock the 2nd one, but found that it was locked, being restricted without training from a master. He guessed he'd have to train with Gai if he wanted to unlock more gates.

25 points went into Jinchuriki, 8 points into archery. He needed to get his archery skills up to par, and he wanted to see what maxing out his Jinchuriki skill would do.

**"Basic Jinchuriki mastered. **

**Jinchuriki rage unlocked.**

**Advanced Jinchuriki Unlocked."**

He tapped the Jinchuriki rage ability.

**"Jinchuriki Rage: Increases Strength, Reflex, Speed, Endurance, and Power by 5. Doubles regeneration rates. Berserk state. Will attack foes directly. Will attack allies if no foes left or allies get in the way. Can be shut off with a successful Intelligence check (Difficulty: 55. Difficulty decreases at 1 per turn.) Decreases Seal Strength 1 per turn. At Seal Strength 0, the Kyuubi is unleashed and you die. (Game over.)**

It...wasn't bad as a trump card, he supposed, but he'd have to be very careful utilizing it. From what he could tell, checks got twice their attribute to the test. At the moment, that meant he'd have to test...

He started scratching some math down in the limbo. The first 3 turns it'd be impossible to make the test. After that, 5 more turns before he broke the 50% mark, at a roughly 44% chance of failing that many times in a row. 6 turns he had a cumulative 2/3 chance of success. So if it activated, he was looking at, odds were, 8 turns of berserker rage or so depending on how his luck favored him.

There were a few new traits available to him.

**"Skill Focus: Requires maxed skill. Allows you to select any advantage you could have selected leveling a skill, demonstrating adeptness of the skill beyond even those that have otherwise mastered it. Increased skill cap on that skill by 10."**

**"Uzumaki Inheritance: Requires Uzumaki bloodline. Requires Sealing at 100. Receive scrolls from your parentage which allow you to increase your sealing up to 50 points higher through their study."**

**"Genjutsu Buster: Requires Jinchuriki. If a Genjutsu would leave you incapacitated, Jinchuriki Rage is activated, smashing the illusion in the process. Can be avoided by certain powerful genjutsu targeting your prisoner directly."**

More fantastic options, though Genjutsu buster was a little iffy. On one hand, he didn't want to fly into a rage and murder his team mates. On the other hand, if he "incapacitated" by a genjutsu, he was a liability at best, and likely a dead man at worst. He'd probably pick it up eventually. For now he went ahead and doubled back, picking up Chakra sensor. The demon brothers had attacked them with stealth, as had Zabuza. He could likely just trial and error his was through the life at this rate, but he didn't want to die over and over because he over looked something.

He looked over his stat sheet concidering this he could have done differently. He could have tried using his bending skill, but he wasn't exactly sure how "Bending" magnetics would work, exactly. The component elements, perhaps, or maybe he could "Bend" a weapon to attack with, like magnetic telekensis? That'd be interesting, but he doubted pulling that out of his ass would have helped much with Zabuza.

Not hesistating in battle was a given, and not overlooking simpler options, like dodging, rather than trying to show off with his new skill probably would have helped.

Not drawing Zabuza's attention prematurely would have saved his life as well. There was probably a reason shinobi tended to hide their skills unless they were setting up for a kill. Supporting Kakashi and pretending to be an unassuming Genin rather than revealing himself as a potential threat would have worked much better.

Not trying to face someone with likely 4-5x his level head on...

Thoughts done, he selected the option to continue.

...

The world faded back in and he woke in his bed, sending a clone to make breakfast as per usual. While he was in the shower, he got a message.

**"Save progress corrupted. Stats and achievements recovered from server. Progress data lost."**

As he finished up and exited back into the main room, he had a sinking feeling he knew what that meant. Checking the callender, he saw that he was indeed back to day one, the graduation exam.

"Well. Fuck."

...

Name: Uzumaki Naruto

Rank: Genin

HP: 110

Chakra: 600

Level: 11

EXP: 0/11000

Strength: 16

Reflex: 11

Speed: 20

Precision: 12

Endurance: 11

Control: 15

Power: 12

Intelligence: 16

Charisma: 12

Traits:

Jinchūriki

Prodigy

Taijutsu Prodigy

Martial Artist(Beginner)

Deny Fate

Juggernaut

Bending

Obsessive Training

Regeneration

Jack of All Trades

Chakra Sensor

Flaws:

Hated (Konoha adults)

Skills:

Bunshin: 13/25

Kage Bunshin Suicide: 50/50

Henge: 9/25

Kawarmi: 9/25

Precise Magnetic Dome: 25/50

Acrobatics: 1/50

Powerful Taijutsu, Hard: 100/100

Gates: 25/200

Archery: 22/100

Small projectiles: 14/100

Large projectiles: 1/100

Melee Weapons: 1/100

Tracking: 10/100

Stealth: 10/100

Interrogation: 1/100

Resist Interrogation: 1/100

Speech: 25/100

-Leadership: 1/100

!Lying: (+15)

Jinchūriki, basic: 50/50

Jinchūriki, Advanced: 0/50

Magnetic Manipulation: 25/200

Nature Manipulation: 0/200

Knowledges:

General: 5/100

World History: 1/100

Konoha history: 10/100

Chakra Theory: 2/100

Tactics: 10/100

Engineering: 5/50

Field Medicine: 1/50

Cooking: 25/100


	8. Chapter 8

AN: The chapter in which critical successes are a thing.

...

The biggest problem with once more being back at the start, he thought to himself, was that the exp awards were going to be pretty pitiful. He could still raise some of his skills with the skill training, and he could get more exp by facing down the stronger challengers in the arena, but ultimately he had exhausted all of the low hanging fruit.

As he set out from his apartment he offered one of the ANBU that thought he was hiding on an opposing roof a wave, easily spotted via his new chakra sensor ability, and then bolted leaving the purple haired shinobi unable to keep up with his head start.

He arrived in the classroom ahead of the rest of the class despite his somewhat late start, though it wasn't surprising. His speed was at the point that even non-taijutsu focused Jounin were likely to be unable to keep up by and large. It worked into his plans, though, as he approached the desk and offered a slight bow to his two teachers.

"I was thinking that perhaps we should push the sparing to the end of the day. In most shinobi missions, knowledge, ranged weapons, and basic skills are all going to come before a taijutsu engagement."

Iruka seemed to consider this, as did Mizuki, and eventually Iruka offered him a nod as the rest of the class started to filter in. "That's a good suggestion Naruto. I think we'll do that."

Naruto smirked as he walked back to his seat. All according to plan.

...

All of the tests had been easy by this time around. The knowledge test hadn't been sprung on them yet, but his jutsu testing had gone flawlessly. Ranged weapons still saw Sasuke eking out a victory over him, though that didn't surprise him. He hadn't bothered to level up his standard shinobi ranged skills, having instead turned to archery, not that it was that much better just yet.

When they had formed up for the sparing session, he knew that things had played out as he'd predicted. Instead of matching them up, the Chuunin instructors informed them that they would be testing them directly, which Naruto knew meant Mizuki was planning on failing him out here. Time to put the traitor in his place.

All of his classmates did as well as they always did, Sasuke proving to be the best in his class, Choji showing "surprising" strength, Shikamaru just barely getting enough points to pass. It was starting to get a little redundant, he supposed, when only his own actions changed things.

It was disturbing how if you dropped a person into the same external factors with their internal factors reset how they did the exact same thing. Called free will into question, to be honest. Even Naruto himself, he figured. If you wiped his memory and skills, dropped him back on the true day one of this, would the loops have gone the same? Would he be standing here now?

Amusingly enough, the solace to that question was the fact that his life worked on random dice rolls. But were they really random? Would they come up the exact same way they had if everything was reset?

He was brought out of his musing as his name was called and he stepped into the arena, faced up against Mizuki.

"Well. You're basically at the top of the class, Naruto, so I feel congradulations are in order." He said softly as he shook the Genin's hand, his words too low for most of the class to hear. "I think, for you, I'm not going to hold back. You'll get bonus points if you manage to land a few hits, of course."

Naruto restrained himself from rolling his eyes, instead doing his best imitation as his original idiot self and giving the older shinobi a huge smile. "Awesome! You're going down sensei!"

They walked back to their starting spots and as soon as Iruka gave the signal to start, Mizuki was launching himself forwards, throwing a punch at Naruto's head that likely would have dropped him on the spot the first time.

This wasn't the first time. Naruto met the fist head on and heard a satisfying crack as he shattered some of the bones in Mizuki's fist. He bent his legs slightly before kicking off the ground, landing his knee in the Chuunin's face and sending him flying across the arena to land on his back.

Mizuki rolled with the blow, landing on his feet with rage flashing across his features. Iruka seemed to notice and quickly spoke. "That was some impressive Taijutsu, Naruto. You pa...Mizuki, what are you doing?!"

The other Chuunin ignored Iruka and closed the distance, stabbing forwards with a kunai he retrieved from his side. Naruto didn't bother trying to dodge, instead shifting his weight both putting him in position for a full haymaker with his right arm while taking the stab to his left. A moment after the kunai stabbed into his arm he twisted forwards and drilled his fist into Mizuki's face, as hard as he could. The chuunin dropped and didn't move after that.

...

It wasn't long after that he found himself sitting before the Hokage in his office. It was to be expected, this wasn't the bloody mist, after all. Murdering your proctor wasn't exactly standard fair. He resisted chuckling in front of the Hokage about that little bit of trivia he'd picked up by having a clone go study the Mist for him. It was wise to know your opponents.

"Do you care to explain yourself, Naruto?" The old man said from behind his desk, looking about as grave as Naruto had ever seen him.

"I beat him in a spar, he tried to kill me, so I took him down. I didn't mean to kill him." That was the truth. He'd just intended to knock the chuunin out, but his attack had done way more damage than it should have.

"I see. I am...disturbed about how easy you're taking this, Naruto. You will kill as a ninja, I was just hoping that you wouldn't lose your innocence so fast."

Naruto gave him a serious look. "Jiji, hesitation on a mission can get either you or a team member killed. We can't be resigned by things like "innocence" when it's a life or death situation. Mizuki was clearly a threat. What would happen if he'd done that to someone less prepared to deal with it?"

The Hokage sighed. "I suppose that's true. Still...never mind. Just the idle whims of an old man. Still. Where did you learn to fight like that? From Iruka's report, you've never demonstrated skill on that level."

Naruto shrugged. "I've always been terrible at chakra control, so I've trained heavily in Taijutsu. I recently discovered the tree walking excersise and that helped me get to a level where I could pass the academy, but most of the time I just overload my techniques..." He paused for a moment, before venturing. "Of course, the shadow clone technique is a lot easier for me because of that."

The Hokage's eyebrows raised at that. "And just where did you learn the shadow clone?"

Naruto studied him for a moment. "I stole the scroll from your library at one point and learned it. I'm a chakra sensor, so paying attention to the guards patrols and slipping in was easy."

The Hokage looked furious, but calmed himself down after a few seconds, a slight look of pride displaying briefly. "I see. Well, I'll let the ANBU know that they need to increase security if a genin managed to find his way to one of our restricted techniques. Are you hiding any other skills I should know about?"

Naruto shrugged. In for an ounce, in for a pound. "I learned to open the first celestial gate, I regenerate damage and chakra quickly, and..." He reached out and exerted some chakra, causing a kunai to float up from his belt into the air. "I apparently have a magnetism bloodline. Ah, and I'm a Jinchuriki for the Kyuubi, though I'm sure you already knew that. Explains my regeneration, chakra, and maybe my bloodline as well. That or my parents, anyways."

To the old mans credit, he managed to suppress his shock pretty well. Not completely, because Naruto knew how to read the old man, but well enough. "No...not your parents. This is going to take some consideration." He slid a bag of money across the desk. "I'm officially classifying you dealing with Mizuki as a C ranked mission and awarding you pay appropriately. Whe found some disturbing implications while cleaning out his apartment. Why don't you go get yourself some ramen?"

Naruto accepted the money with a thanks, and headed out the door. Well, apparently if he was honest with Jiji from the get go, he got to skip the whole interrogation and game over deal.

...

Naruto took it easy the next few days, just relaxing and soaking in some sun. He had a clone working on studying recent world events, and another continuing to refine his cooking skills.

At the moment, he was lounging in the back of the class room, listening as the teams got pared up. Things were proceeding as they had last time, and he was waiting for the inevitable team 7 formation.

"Team 7." Iruka started. "Uchiha Sauske, and Harano Sakura."

They glanced at each other and Iruka confused before they settled back to wait for their instructor. Naruto, for his part, was intruged. He knew he'd made some major changes this time around, but what was going on?

The rest of the teams were announced, with Naruto not finding himself on any of them. Finally Iruka called him down. "Naruto, some arangements have been made in light of your...recent developments. Please head down to training ground one."

Naruto nodded and took off, thoughts flashing through his head. What exactly was going on?

He arived in the clearing in record time, nothing holding him up, and when he arived he found Tenten, Gai, and a mini Gai waiting for him. He rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing double, but realized there was, in fact, a mini me version of guy standing there.

"Our new youthful team mate has arrived!" Gai said, waving Naruto over.

"Erm...what exactly is going on?"

"The Hokage was rather impressed with your budding mastery of Taijutsu, as well as your other skills. He felt as though your youthful spirit would be wasted studying with a novice Genin team, so there was a swap. My precious student Neji has been given to Team Seven as he receives most of his training from his clan, and it was decided that his development wouldn't suffer from it. I disagreed, but when I learned that he would be studying under my most youthful rival, I agreed to the trade."

Naruto soaked this in, debated for a few moments, and then glanced over to the chibi clone. "Hey bushy brows, let's spar."

"YOSH!"

...

As it turned out, the other Genin was the "Lee" Tenten had refered to the last time around. One Rock Lee, to be precise. At the moment, they were faced off against each other on opposing sides of the clearing. They'd agreed to only use Taijutsu, though Lee made it clear that it was just to get a feel for how he was at the moment for Sensei. He didn't want him to hold back in future matches, and Naruto agreed.

As it was, apparently Lee had damaged chakra coils and couldn't mold jutsu as all. So naturally he'd focused all of his efforts into Taijutsu. Naruto gave this some consideration, and after a few moments, decided he was probably terrifying. Not having to spend any points in any of the chakra related attributes and likely a beyond maxed Taijutsu...he had a sinking feeling he was about to get his ass kicked.

The battle began and Lee dashed forwards, opening the battle with a leaping spin kick. Naruto brought an arm up to block, managing to deflect it away from his face but still feeling the pain in his arm. He crouched and leaped to uppercut his airborne target, and just barely managed to catch him in the chin.

Lee shot his legs down and connected with Naruto's chest, sending the younger Genin flying to the ground where he landed on his back as the green spandexed chapion preformed a triple backflip and landed the finish.

He was just climbing to his feet as Lee once more charged forwards, and Naruto allowed the first gate to open, hoping to gain some kind of edge.

It helped close a little bit of the distance, and he managed a good parry to the forward jab, retaliating with one of his own which landed against Lee's chest, causing him to flinch ever so slightly and allowing Naruto time to pull back and launch a straight kick towards the same, hopefully bruised, rib.

Rock Lee sidestepped the attack and punched him in the side of the knee causing Naruto to his in pain as it forcefully spun him around. He managed to duck under the follow up blow by grabbing the ground with his hands, and retaliated with a donkey kick backwards.

Unfortunately, his hands lost their purchase and he fell to the ground, Lee's follow up kick knocking him unconcious.

...

**"Gave Rock Lee a decent taijutsu only spar. +2000exp."**

...

Judging by the sun in the sky as his eyes opened back up, he hadn't been out for more than a few minutes. He winced as he rubbed his head and sat up, but felt that most of his injuries had already healed. There was some consolation in that if his opponent wanted to fight him over and over again, with no intention of killing him, he'd eventually win seeing as a normal person didn't recover in time that could be measured in minutes.

Lee offered him a hand when he noticed he was awake, and Naruto took it allowing himself to be picked up off the ground.

Gai was regarding him with an apprising look, a hint of seriousness etched in as well. "I've never seen someone maintain a Gate while being unconscious. You may want to shut it down. Even the first gate can have lasting consequences."

Naruto shrugged and closed the gate, feeling his regeneration kick into overdrive as he did so. "I assume the body normally naturally shuts off the Gate when you fall unconscious so it doesn't damage itself?"

Gai nodded. "A youthful observation."

Naruto chuckled. "Well. I have a healing bloodline." He said easily. "My chakra and damage to my body rapidly regenerate. It's enough that I can heal even with the first gate open, though it is drastically reduced."

Gai took some time before responding. "That's...interesting. I'm aware of healing bloodlines, as well as...other things that can cause someone to have a form of regeneration." He gave him a knowing look. "Though I've never seen someone with one learn to open the Gates. I can see how that could be quite the advantage."

"That said, young Genin, the Gates are restricted for a reason. If you expect to learn from me, I'm going to lay down some ground rules for their use."

"I can agree to that. Hit me."

"Very well. We'll make it simple, in your case. You are only to utilize the Gates when either your life or a team mates life is in danger..." He held up a hand to head off Naruto's protests. "Or if your regeneration is capable of countering the damaging effects."

"Sounds good. Alright, that seems fair."

"Good, now let us begin training, so that our flames of youth may burn bright! Let's see 50 laps around Konoha to warm up, begin!"

This...was going to be insane.

...

**"Game updated."**

**"Auto checkpoints installed."**

**"Auto checkpoint saved."**

**"Team Kakashi and Team Gai unlocked."**

**"If you're game is reset, you may choose to resume post academy with one of these two teams. If you start from the beginning, you can unlock others."**

The message popped up while he was eating a delicious dinner of pan seared rabbit seasoned with local herbs one of his clones had gathered during the day. His cooking had reached level 50, unlocking the "Restorative meal" advantage, which increased the healing rate of anyone that ate one of his meals by 50% overnight. Didn't do much for him as if he wasn't dead he was usually healed up, but it would be handy for his team mates. The game rationalized it by utilizing the healing properties of certain herbs when cooked right, but he felt that was a bit of a stretch. He knew some herbs could be used for healing, but assuming he could do so with any random herbs he could find in any location was pretty silly. Still, he wasn't going to argue.

He turned in early, and had secured an avoid of the early morning training with Gai and Lee by claiming, truthfully, that he had to upgrade his supplies which meant an early visit to Tenten before his team meet proper.

...

"Morning Tenten." He greeted the young konoichi as he entered.

"Good morning Naruto. What can I do for you?" She looked up from where she was working behind the counter.

"Ah. I need...these." He collected his clothes from where he had picked them up earlier. "Also I need to exchange my used gear for some fresh stuff, and get outfitted with some basic shinobi stuff. Oh, and I'd like to declare my primary weapon to be a bow."

She gave him a look as he set everything down. "Any idea what kind of draw you're looking for?"

"Erm...probably somewhere around 500kg. Closer to a ton with my gate active."

To Tenten's credit, she didn't gawk. Probably because she'd seen him spar Lee the previous day and had some idea of his physical strength. Still, she let out a low whistle.

"Yeah, that's why shinobi primarily use thrown weapons, especially ones that do extensive strength training. You're looking for a custom order work, heavy on strengthen seals and real time feedback to adjust to whatever strength you apply. You're lucky it's your primary weapon, it'd be expensive otherwise. I think we might have one in back. If not, we'll have to get it ordered for you."

She finished up exchanging his goods, and he paid for the clothing. She then vanished into the back, coming out a few minutes later with a bow and quiver. "Yeah. We only had one. Not many shinobi go into archery."

"I assume the quiver has holding seals on it?" He said, hoping to earn some brownie points by demonstrating some knowledge.

"Yeah. Good eye." She handed the pair of items over. "Should be about..."

"200 arrows?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, that's about right. How'd you know?"

"It's uh...the mass capacity for your standard storage seal?" An educated guess, at best.

"About double, actually." She responded with a laugh. "I've been practicing for awhile and I've got the hang of slightly more advanced seals. Good guess, though."

He returned the laugh, feeling the team bonding already going smoothly. "Don't suppose I could get you to show me a few things about seal work?"

She shrugged. "Sure, why not? I'm no Jiraya, but I could teach you the basics."

"Awesome. I'll treat you to dinner for the favor."

He didn't notice the slight blush come to hear cheeks as he gathered up his gear. "After we get done with our team meeting today?"

"Uh, yeah. That sounds good." She stammered slightly and he looked at her inquisitively before mentally shrugging it off.

"Awesome. I'll see you in a few hours. I'm going to go break this baby in."

**"You've unlocked a seal trainer. Seals are very specialized, to the point where you need to have a trainer or a source of material to learn from.**

**Tenten: Can train you up to 25 points in seals."**

As he exited, he noticed that he noticed several of the same chakra signitaures he'd been feeling since yesterday. He glanced around, and didn't see anyone, meaning that they were likely ANBU. Why was there an increased tail on him?

He shrugged it off and continued to the training grounds. As long as they didn't get in the way, he didn't really care who saw him.

...

AN: Some might think that Naruto's meeting with the Hokage went a little too easy, and you'd be right. With his improved lying and a decent, though not fantastic, roll, he was able to achieve a partial success on his lie. The Hokage has some suspicions, but is willing to allow Naruto to continue on for the moment, albeit with a larger force on ANBU keeping track of him, primarily to make sure nothings wrong with the seal. None of Naruto's stats have changed outside an EXP increase, so just refer to last chapter if you're looking for them.


End file.
